Hellfire
by Alsike
Summary: Sequel to Human. Emma's an X-man now, but she wasn't always fighting for truth, justice, and peaceful-coexistence. Emily has had a taste of her past, but is she ready to meet the White Queen?
1. Chapter 1

Monday 5:15 AM

Images of Emily Prentiss flashed across the screen, the first few blurry, her figure half obscured by crowds of people in evening dress. In one she was glancing over her shoulder, face turned toward the lens, but looking past it. At that one the series stopped, and the watcher, a shadowed silhouette in a darkened room, leaned back in his chair. He didn't speak, didn't move for minutes. When he did, he pressed a button, and the screen went black.

* * *

Emma gave up on sleep when the clock showed 5:30am on its display. It was too easy to fall into old habits. Emily's voice on the phone, clear, and teasing as they drifted easily from subject to subject, avoiding anything serious, anything difficult. It was easier to let your guard down when someone was too far away to cut. And those were the rules of the game. The phone was where they pretended they were friends, where they could flirt without consequence, where nothing meaningful was said, because the meaning was trapped in the act of dialing the phone, and anything else would be a surfeit.

Emma knew what it meant when she scrolled down to the D's. Do NOT Dial was what she had labeled Emily's number as when she couldn't bring herself to delete it. It was a good reminder that every time she highlighted it and pressed send, she was submitting to a weakness, an addiction she wasn't strong enough to break.

She didn't know what it meant when Emily called her.

She hated telephones. She hated Washington DC, because her mind couldn't reach that far. She didn't have the ability to reach through telephone wires and take the answers to the questions she didn't know how to ask.

The telephone was a place for lies and inconsequentials. It was sex, letting their voices touch when their bodies couldn't, as fleeting and meaningless as that. The only difference was, when she heard Emily yawn and roll over, her half whispered, "goodnight, Emma," (never goodbye) and the cut connection, she was gone, as if she had never been there.

It wasn't enough. This time Emma hadn't even been the one to submit and make the call, but it still wasn't enough. There had been too many questions asked that weekend that hadn't been given answers, too many confessions and not enough absolution.

She could still feel Emily's narrow shoulders and smooth neck under her hands, the flutter of her pulse, and she wondered how badly she would take it when Emily finally rejected her. Emily had been the one pursuing her from the beginning, never pushing too hard, but pressing forward, coming into her space, willing to ask for help when she needed it. She didn't _know_ Emma, not all of her, as Tony had so kindly reminded her. And when Emily finally knew too much, and didn't need her help anymore, it would be so easy for her to turn away.

Emma had never been very good at asking for help. And she doubted Emily was the most broken and needy one out of the two of them.

She couldn't stay in bed any longer, mulling over the look of disgust Emily had given her when her hands had been around her throat. She needed to go over lesson plans anyways, and coffee was a necessity for survival after three hours of sleep in the last 48.

Jean was in the kitchen. Emma ignored her and the mess she was making at the stove. She banged through the cupboards, looking for the coffee grinder that was never put back in the same place.

"You saw Emily this weekend." It wasn't a question. The smirk in Jean's voice was too blatant for that.

Emma glanced at her reflection in the window, but couldn't see anything that would make it obvious. The circles under her eyes were disgusting though.

Jean laughed at her and tapped her temple. "You've been getting twitchier and twitchier these past few months, so much I can hardly be in the same mental space as you. But now you're all calm again. So either you saw Emily or you did some Zen Meditation over the weekend, and with the way you checked for love bites, I'm going all in on the former."

Emma cringed at the term 'love bites,' 'bite marks' or 'hickies' was perfectly descriptive. "Fabulous," she replied. "I'm glad it's that obvious to you. I _could _have been with someone else."

"No, you couldn't have."

"Why not?"

Jean gave her an innocent smile that made Emma's skin creep. "Because I forgave you. And if you blow it again, I might forget that."

Emma leaned against the counter and swallowed hard. It was always good to get a reminder that Jean really was a crazy bitch underneath. "I'll… keep that in mind." She looked down at her hands. She didn't feel less twitchy.

Jean laughed. "You shouldn't be ashamed of it."

"I _shouldn't_ be ashamed?" Emma closed her eyes, trying to let the tension release from her brow and shoulders. "There's nothing to be more ashamed of."

"I don't understand you. Why can't you just let yourself be happy?"

"She doesn't make me happy."

Jean turned away from the cupboard to look at her in shock. Emma wished she hadn't let so much honesty into her tone. She sighed and glanced down. An egg carton was sitting out next to the sink. She picked a cool egg out of it and curled her fingers around it.

"She doesn't?"

"That was never part of the bargain." Emma almost laughed. "She makes me horny and angry, irritated and frustrated, tired and overwhelmed, but not _happy_, never happy."

"You need to relax, Emma."

"How am I supposed to do that?" Emma glared at her. "How can I relax? How can I be anything but ashamed and afraid when someone I don't trust, someone like _Tony Stark,_ just looks at me and can _tell_. He knows that everything important to me, everything I can't survive without is stored in _this_." She twisted her hand, and presented the egg to Jean's eyes. "'That's all well and good,' he says. 'It's healthy to have something precious.' But this _thing_, this precious object doesn't give a damn about me or about herself. She just wanders off." Emma made the egg walk along the counter. "Dodging bullets, _poorly_, and chasing habitual murderers. But that's just fine too, because 'you shouldn't be so _controlling,_ Emma.'

"And then my untrustworthy friend saunters into a meeting of people who _hate_ me and fear me, but are too impotent to attack me directly, and mentions, off-handedly, to_ everyone_ the existence of this precious object." Emma looked down at the egg cupped in her hand. She turned over her fist and held her arm out, pointing it at Jean. "And then I just wait."

Her hand tightened until she felt the shell tense with pressure. She gripped harder and it cracked, the innards oozing out, and shards crumbled in her hand. The fragments of shell dug into her palm, the unfertilized embryo running out between her fingers and dripping glutinously into the sink. She turned her hand over and displayed the shattered mess. A trace of blood ran through it from where a sharp shell had cut her hand. "Wait for it all to fall apart."

"Emma," Jean's voice was too gentle to be anything but an insult. "You can't just expect the worst. Bad things don't always happen."

"To _you_." Emma shook her head, still watching the mess in her palm. "They don't always happen to _you_. They do to me. I can't afford to just sit back and hope that everything will turn out all right. Ask Jubilee how well that works. Ask her if the scar that runs from her neck to her hip means things turn out all right!" She swallowed hard, remembering them laughing together, Emily, almost hers, and Jubilee, making fun, probably of her. But Jubilee was the one who had told her…

"I just want to be allowed to stop feeling so much, so that when it happens, when I finally have to bury her, I won't…" Emma turned away and scrubbed at her hands under the faucet. The smell of raw egg was making her want to vomit.

"Emma, you can't stay closed off forever." Jean was coming towards her, and the red glow was filling her eyes again. Emma had managed to put her mind back together, had managed to stop seeing the phoenix every time she looked at Jean, but it was so much harder to stay in control than it used to be, and when she was agitated she could feel her carefully sealed cracks begin to reopen.

"Save your platitudes for someone who cares!" Emma shoved a chair in between them. She couldn't let her get too close. This was _her_ fault. It was obviously Jean's doing that she couldn't keep Emily out of her head. Obviously… because she hadn't felt like this before, she _hadn't. _Except when Emily was dead, when all the stupid lies of pride, and identity, and self-preservation had shown themselves to be mere cobwebs clouding her mind.

"Stop pushing me toward her when it's obvious that she doesn't feel like this. I have _no idea_ what she sees when she looks at me. She knows too much of what I've done, and I can't stop thinking that she's just waiting for me to show my true colors and become one of her precious unsubs, waiting for me to try to hurt her."

"Would you?" It wasn't rhetorical, but for a moment, Emma could see the old Jean, the one that really did want to believe the best of people, the one that didn't have blood on her hands, that could still believe the best of herself.

Emma had never been that girl.

She looked down at the red traces on her wet hands. "Never say never," she said, brusquely drying her hands and starting for the stairs.

"Weren't you going to have breakfast?"

"I'm not hungry anymore."

* * *

Psychological counseling sessions were Emily's least favorite activity for early Monday mornings, but the Federal therapist had decided that she was less likely to miss an appointment due to work obligations if that was when they scheduled them, and then weaseled her into it by reminding her that if she didn't miss half of them and have to reschedule, they would be over much sooner.

George was like that, too young to be as confident as he was, with one of those irritating psychologist smiles that said your bullshit wasn't fooling him one bit. That was why Emily had decided to not go into therapy after graduating with a degree in psychology; she wasn't very good at the smile. If she didn't let what she was thinking show on her face, she usually looked tense and irritable, which had a tendency to put off patients from issuing a confidence.

"So, I heard you had an exciting weekend."

Emily dropped into the couch and rolled her eyes. Score one for the FBI gossip mill. "Thrilling. Especially spending five hours with the NYPD, that was fun."

"The party was in honor of your mother, wasn't it? How did that make you feel?"

Emily covered her face with her hands. "It's eight o'clock on a Monday morning. Can't I get more than one sentence of small talk?"

"Well, you could ask me how my weekend was, but I'd have to deduct that from your appointment time."

"You mean taking an interest in my therapist's personal life doesn't signify a healthful and sane reengagement with the world?"

"Not if you're doing it to avoid questions on why you decided to pursue a serial killer on your own, rejecting offers of backup, and apparently thought it was a good decision to bring your gun on vacation with you."

Emily looked away from him and scowled at the wall. "I wasn't trying to set up a suicide by unsub situation… again. I had backup. And…" she glanced back at him, frowning, "to tell you the truth, I was more afraid of some of the other people at the conference than I was of the killer."

"Really?"

"It felt like being back at Liberty Ranch. Everyone was so strong in their beliefs, in their sense of morality, and you can almost understand, almost agree, until they say something that is completely appalling to you, and you realize that their lines are nowhere near yours. Crooke was normal, just another madman and fool."

"You were uncomfortable back in political society?"

Emily frowned. She hated the politics, but that wasn't what made her uncomfortable. "It was just so clearly a mutant party. The mutants full of the arrogance and the entitlement of politicians, but _worse_ somehow. There were humans there, but the humans were lackeys and dummies, being used as a front."

"You've always said you don't have a problem with mutants."

Emily froze. She hadn't meant for it to come out like that. She had jumped on her entire team for being anti-mutant. Was she a hypocrite? But no. She had just not spoken clearly. It was their morality, not their politics, that she couldn't stand. She had seen too many deaths caused by people fighting for good causes in the wrong ways. The young man with explosives strapped around his waist, who tripped over a stone and exploded in front of the market… It wasn't the mutants' powers she feared; it was their minds. "I don't. I just found them unscrupulous, not mutants in general, but some of the people there. And when someone is that powerful but you can't predict what they're going to do with that power…"

All of a sudden she thought of Emma, of her anger, her readiness to kill, of her sudden explosive violence. Jubilee's nonchalant words, and Emma's lack of denial…

"Do you really think they're going to do something drastic?"

Emily was startled by George's response and had to remember what they were talking about. "No. Not obviously drastic. They've been domesticated. They're so used to working the system they've forgotten that they could even try to overthrow it." She frowned as she thought of Emma, of Tony, Sebastian and Lorne, who had watched and waited, but not involved themselves. They didn't play the games. They waited for the decisive moment to act. "Most of them, at least. Some, even some humans, aren't fooled."

"What _do_ you think about mutants in power, having more of a presence in government?"

Emily looked at him steadily. "I'd rather have a mutant president than a human one put in power by a cabal, whether of mutants or of _any_ interest group. Are you checking my loyalty now?"

George laughed. "I'm always checking your loyalty. It goes under column five of mentally competent for continued employment."

"Do I still have a job?"

"Hmm," George glanced down at his paper. "Shows admirable loyalty to the American ideals of popularly elected government. What do you think?"

Emily frowned. "Depends on who you show it to. This weekend someone told me I was a hero, because I could see the big picture, and did what I could to make it better."

"That must have made you feel good."

Emily looked at George's psychologist smile and wondered if he expected her to deny it. She really couldn't. "It made me wonder whether it was possible to be an adult and a hero at the same time."

"What does being an adult mean to you?"

She had expected that question, and given it some thought, but she still didn't have an answer. "I don't know. But it's more than what I have."

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

Monday 10 am

JJ couldn't stop looking at Emily's neck. The modest oxford _almost_ covered it up, but not entirely. And with the way Emily was leaning on her hand, bending over a spread of photographs from a file she didn't recognize, looking vaguely depressed, the shirt pulled away from her neck, exposing just that much more of it to the open air. Every time JJ passed her desk, walking back and forth to Hotch's office, with various files and questions (more than she honestly had to, not that she would admit that, even to herself), her eyes were drawn to that smooth column of neck, and _that really, really disgusting mark on it!_

She also wasn't a fan of that look of pensive depression. Sad Emily was prone to taking irrational risks and JJ did not want to be a target of another such irrational risk. Every time she walked by she just got more and more pissed at Emma. If you leave someone with that kind of mark, they should at least be in a good mood the next day!

Finally, she gave in. JJ leaned back against the wall and smiled fakely at Emily. "So, you went to see Emma this weekend?"

Emily shrugged, still paging through the file. "She was there. It was in honor of my mom."

JJ crossed her arms. "She was just _there_? You showed up and were like, oh, I haven't seen you in a while, and come home with a hickey the size of _Australia_?"

Emily finally really looked at her, confusion written on her face. "I'm not sure if that's any of your business," she said tensely.

JJ stiffened. "I'm not saying anything." She considered leaving before it got worse, but didn't. "I'm just pissed that you didn't even tell me you were going. I had to find out from Morgan! We used to be friends, Emily."

And that was what she was angry about. It was easier to blame Emma for screwing up their friendship, but the truth was it had been messed up for a long time before that.

"And maybe once you stop making comments about my sex life we can be friends again." Emily snapped back, flicking the file closed. "Seriously JJ, _think_ before you speak. How am I supposed to talk to you if I know you're just going to tell me I'm a slut to be seeing Emma at all?"

"I don't think that." JJ looked away, wishing she had more control over her reactions. "But you don't have to _lie_ to me, Emily. I do know how to be happy for someone, if you're happy being with her."

Emily stared at her desk, her fingers tracing the edge of the file. "Happy?" She glanced up at JJ. "I slept with her, but you already worked that out. But that isn't even half of it." She shook her head derisively. "She murdered her sister. I asked, and she didn't deny it. And _then_ I slept with her. I _still_ slept with her."

JJ gaped.

Emily flipped open the file and took out a photograph. It was of a woman, auburn hair, sprawled across a marble step, the back of her head blown off, a single entry point in her forehead.

"How am I supposed to deal with this? How am I supposed to rationalize this? Not even her actions, but _my own_. I found out that she killed her sister and I wasn't surprised. It fit the profile. Decisive, violent, unrestrained, when someone she cares about is hurt, she will solve the problem. Nothing is too extreme. Nothing is going overboard. I knew this, but I needed…"

"Her sister?"

Emily bit down on her desperation and passed her the file. "Adrienne Frost."

JJ was shocked by the heft of it. "This is a big file."

"She was being investigated for quite a few things, her husband's death, bombing, embezzlement, tax fraud, when she was found dead, out of the country."

"Do you think she was guilty?"

Emily shrugged. "I wouldn't be surprised. She planted bombs in Emma's school and killed one of her students. Emma always said she didn't want to talk about her family." She laughed weakly. "I know it's not simple. I know she cares, sometimes too much. But what kind of person do you have to be to kill your sister?"

JJ looked away. Defending Emma was anathema to her soul, but she wasn't going to lie. "You were an only child."

Emily laughed incredulously. "Are you saying you would consider killing your sister?"

"Consider it?" JJ laughed. "You have no idea how often I've considered it. But considered it seriously? If she murdered a child, if she was out of reach of the law, if she seemed unrepentant and likely to do it again? I wouldn't just consider it. I might even consider it my responsibility." JJ shook her head. "Sisters… sometimes they make you wonder what family actually means."

Emily's expression was horrified.

"Don't profile me!" JJ waved her hands as if they would deflect the profiler stare. "If you ask me what she did to traumatize me, I'll ask you why you're a sexual masochist!"

"I'm not a sexual masochist!"

"Tell that to the woman who keeps biting you!"

Emily's hand slipped to her neck. "Would you have a problem with it, if I were?"

JJ's eyes dropped and she looked away. "You know what I see every day. I hate seeing you marked up because I don't want you to get hurt. And even if you can trust her…"

Emily shook her head, trying not to think of the door against her back, the hand on her throat. "If she hurt me… she'd hate herself."

JJ handed her back the file. "What are you looking for in there? Are you looking for an excuse, or evidence? Because even though you can understand why someone would kill their sister, you're a profiler, you can understand someone who rapes children. It doesn't mean you forgive them."

Emily shut the file and frowned. "There's no evidence. Just because I know… there's no way to prove it. That makes it worse though. She isn't afraid of telling me this because there's no way I can use it against her."

"It makes you feel helpless."

Emily shot her a look. "Why haven't you taken the profiling training course yet?"

JJ stiffened. "You _know_. I don't want to be separated from the victims-"

"Are you afraid?"

"I told you not to profile me!"

"Are you afraid that you aren't smart enough? That's the real problem, right? You have confidence in your ability to be pretty and sound sensitive, but you said before…" Emily thought back. "You said you weren't as smart as me."

"I'm not." JJ looked angry, but wasn't letting it into her voice. "I'm not Reid, with his eidetic memory. I'm not a language genius like you. I'm not brawny and afraid of nothing like Morgan. Don't blame me for doing what I'm good at."

"You're afraid you won't be useful."

"You can't replace me! You tried, but-"

"Jordan was _fine_. She did your job. She just couldn't do everything else that you do. Just accept it, you're as much as a profiler as anyone here. That was why she didn't fit the hole you left. We didn't need a publicist, we needed a sixth profiler."

"Maybe I don't _want_ to be a profiler! Maybe looking at these disgusting people's handiwork every day is enough, I don't need to live in their heads!"

"You already do."

"I don't. Someone on this team needs to remember that there are blacks and whites. If you can't tell whether or not the woman you're fucking is an unsub or not, maybe it's a sign that you're getting a little too deep into the psyche of your precious psychopaths!"

Garcia popped up between them, her plaid bow bouncing. "I see my two favorite girls are having a little stress." She pressed her hand to her chest. "You _know_ this makes me sad. I am like unto…" Garcia frowned, and glanced at Emily, "um, the one that turned into a rock with the streams coming down?"

"Niobe," Emily filled in automatically.

"I am like unto Niobe, with my streams of never ending tears!"

JJ shook her head. "I've had enough. I'm going back to work."

"Oh no!" Penelope caught JJ's sleeve. "This is not making the goddess happy. This is called _a-voi-dance_. It's a dance I like to avoid. There is only one thing that will make this goddess happy."

"What's that?"

"A girls' night out!"

JJ and Emily eyed each other with trepidation.

"Because the last one ended so well," commented Emily wryly.

"That was months ago! You are no longer suicidal and have a girlfriend, and JJ is in control of her lesbian tendencies."

"What lesbian tendencies? I don't have lesbian tendencies!" yelped JJ.

"I thought our psych records were supposed to be sealed," grumbled Emily.

Morgan suddenly appeared in their midst. "Did I hear the words 'lesbian tendencies' and 'girls' night out' included in the same conversation? Because I so totally don't want to be left out of this."

Emily gave him a look. "Unless you are hiding something surprising under those fugly man-pants of yours, I think you are banned from both the definition of girls' night out, _and_ lesbian tendencies. So avaunt."

Morgan pouted.

"Aww," Garcia cupped his face. "If it were up to me, I would totally invite my pretty princess along, but Emily has laid down the law." She turned back to the girls. "So, tonight? Dinner and drinks? Sixish? As not to make it too late?"

Emily shrugged, giving in.

"You got a babysitter JJ?"

"Will's home. But I'm up for it." She gave Emily a wry look. "I'm the one who said I still wanted to be friends, right? And moderators are always a good idea."

She turned away and patted Morgan on the back. "So when did you become the pretty princess?"

Emily looked at Penelope. "You didn't emerge from your cave just for that, did you?"

"Nope." Garcia handed her a thick stack of paperwork. "This is for you. Your collar in New York."

"What? I had to spend five hours answering questions for the NYPD as if I was some sort of costumed vigilante. Can't they do it?"

"Sorry, our jurisdiction and your collar, that means your paperwork. And Strauss is not pleased about you bringing in a killer while technically on vacation. That means she's going to be looking at it hard."

Emily grumbled but took the papers. "God, I'm going to have to be pretty creative on this one too."

Garcia chuckled. "Tell me about it." Emily shot her an odd look, and she winced. "On the other hand, don't. I don't want to know."

* * *

Emma sat in her office between classes, hoping the closed door would keep out the grade grubbers and whiners, purportedly working on planning the next paper topic for her advanced telepathy class. A research paper would be good, something where they took a psychology article and retested it with telepathic data. It could be interesting if they chose good topics. She'd give them a list and assign an abstract so she could check if they had any clue what they were doing. She hated boring papers.

She hated Emily's shields. It was absurd that a human could have shields that good, except she had a good reason for it. Emma had been surprised at the internal barriers in Emily's mind that were so similar to her own. She had just taught Emily that she could move them outside, to keep out intruders. She had picked it up easily enough, too easily it seemed. Emma conjectured that she had linked them with her internal shields, because they were always up; she was always partially closed off.

It made Emma feel like a teenager to not know what someone thought of her. Like before she had been able to control her powers, when she had had to live with her family…

The worst part about living with her family was that her abilities didn't work against them. When she heard a thought, it was as if it were marked Read Only, and she only heard it if it was projected. It was crap. So many mutants ended up hurting their families by accident when their powers manifested, but it always seemed that the ones who could hurt were able to hurt and the ones who could help weren't able to.

There was nothing more useless than a telepath in the bosom of their family. If she had been able to use her powers on her family she could have fixed so many things. There had been research done on using telepathy to cure addictions, and even as a child Emma could have worked out a way to make her brother or her mother cringe away from their crutches. Even if Christian still had gone crazy, she could have healed him. If she had known what her father was thinking, he would never have manipulated her so easily.

And she would have never been tricked by Adrienne. She would never have needed to kill her.

Emma closed her eyes. She hadn't thought about Adrienne in years, but seeing Jubilee again had brought it all rushing back. And now Emily knew another of her weaknesses, another of her sins.

She had loved Adrienne so much when she was a child, idolized her. She had wanted to look like her, act like her, have _friends _like her. But Adrienne had hated her from first sight and done everything she could to make her life hell. And Emma had still idolized her, and taken the cue that the best thing to be was as vicious and as selfish as you could.

And then she had won the competition, her father choosing her to be the heir over Adrienne, and she had tossed the prize away, rubbing it just that much more in her face. She had gotten used to the idea that maybe she'd never be as pretty as Adrienne, or as comfortable with other people, but she could be more powerful. And power plus wealth could get you everything else. It could get you beauty. It could get you friends, sycophants at least, which was just as good as all of Adrienne's shallow hangers-on. It could get you pleasure, and sex, sex, sex.

It couldn't get you your brother back.

Maybe that was why she fell for Adrienne's lies, asked for her help, groveled at the bitch's feet. They were adults, weren't they? They didn't have to have the same relationship they had had as children. Emma didn't have to check her bed for snakes or bugs or road kill, and Adrienne didn't have to check her clothes for sabotage or graffiti.

Emma just had to check her school for bombs.

Emma was always the one to retaliate, never the one to start it. But this time she ended it.

Adrienne had to check her brain for a bullet.

She wasn't sorry. She couldn't stand that look on Emily's face, the one that said she saw the killer, saw the criminal inside. But she would never regret what she had done. She had enough to regret in her life. Adrienne was a psychopath and a serial murderess. If she could change anything, she only would have killed her sooner.

* * *

Monday 8:42 PM

The girls' night out began with Margaritas, continued with salty Mexican food washed down with sangria, and concluded with tequila shots and beer. So the conversation was very free and easy.

"Look," said JJ, after downing her third shot. "I know Emma and I, sudden irrational hatred, possessiveness, I dunno, all that crap. But seriously, have you _seen_ the mark she left on your neck? What happened to your super turtleneck cardigans when you need them? And those are teeth marks, honestly! I don't even want to see your back. I saw your back last time, and it was like: Caged tiger!"

Garcia giggled and tugged Emily closer by the collar. "Yep, those are teeth marks_. Grrr_. _So_ jealous."

"I'm not jealous!" JJ emphasized unnecessarily. "But like, have you thought about infections and things? And her clothing doesn't exactly suggest sexually unavailable."

Emily sighed and rested her head on her arm. "I'm not _stupid_. This has come up."

"You mean she's cheated on you? _Already?_"

Garcia gasped and put her hand over her mouth.

"No! Yes… no. Sort of. I don't fucking know. I don't even know if we have the sort of relationship where cheating actually counts." Emily peeled the label from her bottle of fine cerveza. "Maybe we do. Maybe that's all that counts. Sort of like, as long as we don't have anyone else, we're together, but once we do, once we don't need whatever this is, it'll go away, as if it had never happened."

There was a small silence.

"That really blows," said Garcia finally. "I need another beer."

* * *

That evening Emma's phone rang with an unexpected number. She frowned as she picked it up. A watcher would have seen her pale slightly and stiffen at the voice on the other end.

"Hello, Sebastian. How lovely to hear from you," she said, her voice flat and cool. "Yes, fortuitous indeed, our meeting."

"My companion? Do you mean Emily?" He blathered on and she picked up an invitation with a crumpled corner and thought about Emily in a red dress. "No, of course she isn't trained," Emma snapped. "That wasn't my intention with her." She rolled her eyes. "The sex, Sebastian, it was for the sex." He responded and she laughed.

"Darling, if you still think stuffing your dick full of kinetic energy improves your technique, you really learnt nothing at the Hellfire Club." She chuckled, still pleased with her response as he formulated his next impertinent question.

"No, she's a natural." Emma smiled to herself, sitting and leaning back into her pillows as she reformulated their history. "I just ran into her, accidentally. I was bored and she was flirty so I let her pick me up, and god, Seb, you have no idea what she can do with her tongue."

She paused and frowned at his words. Could he honestly believe she had run into Emily at the _club_? Hadn't he been paying attention? But everyone knew that a leopard didn't change his spots and he wasn't idealistic enough to blind himself like certain others who may or may not have allowed her on their team.

"What do you mean? I haven't been visiting out of solidarity with you, darling. I've had to get it elsewhere. Emily was just blind luck." Her eyes narrowed. "No, I have no claim on her. We have sex; we're not _life partners_."

"What do you _think_, Sebastian? She's a human. Low shelf life. I've taken most of what I want. There were some things she had never tried before, but now, there's not much…. "

"She's still a _lesbian,_ Seb; don't be stupid. How exactly did you assume that fucking me would make her bisexual? Or are you asking from personal experience?" She laughed at his response.

"A party? Certainly, a good party? Because that last one was boring as shit…"

Emma breathed through her nose and slid her fingers over her nipple. "Is that so? Yes, I would have loved to bring her to that kind of party."

"No… I'm not seeing her anymore, not for a while. It was an accidental encounter at the conference as well. She was never seeing me exclusively. We were just fucking."

Emma paused, then growled. "He was trying to kill my students, Shaw. You know how I feel about that.

"No, I don't think she was surprised. She grew up around politics, of course she knows all politicians are corrupt. I don't think she gives a damn as long as they don't kill and rape children. So if that's one of your new themes, I doubt she'd be interested."

Emma forced a laugh. "For old times' sake? Maybe if you wash your hair. Oh, please. Women are a challenge. Obviously you never managed to please one if you don't know that by now."

"Yes, I'll look forward to it. Thank you for thinking of me, Sebastian."

Emma ended the call, and sat, motionless, until the moon set.

* * *

"I really don't understand why you keep saying I have lesbian tendencies!" exclaimed JJ, wobbling out towards the parking lot. "I am a tactile person. I touch my friends! It doesn't mean anything! And seriously." She pointed at Emily. "She assaulted me! Not like, assault, assault. But there was no ninety-ten, that was one hundred percent Emily!"

"Can we go back to pretending that never happened? I would have kissed anyone that night."

"Aww, now I'm disappointed I didn't stick around! Jayj, you get all the fun."

JJ grumbled again.

"But you really shouldn't deny it," continued Garcia. "Your _mom_ knows you have lesbian tendencies. You even felt me up once."

"At a party," JJ hissed. "When I was blindfolded!"

Garcia patted her shoulder. "It isn't gay unless you push back."

Emily frowned. "I think that only applies to men."

* * *

"Jayj?" Emily said, leaning over her knees in the back of the taxi that had just let Garcia out. The driver was very pleased since he got to go into the high fare district of central DC and out to the suburbs, all on one trip. "What's it like?"

"What's what like?"

Emily looked uncomfortable and childlike and very very drunk. JJ was reminded of the last time she had been alone with a drunk Emily and very carefully kept her hands to herself. "Don't kiss me."

Emily scowled at her. "I was _going_ to ask if it was different, having someone at home."

JJ stared at her, really glad she was not sober, because the horrible twist in her stomach was bad enough as it was. She looked tense and unhappy, with an expression suspicious that she had managed to reveal one of her deeply shielded vulnerabilities. "Um, I don't know."

"Don't tell me what you think I want to hear. Tell me what it's really like."

"Really like?" JJ leaned back in her seat and stared up at the ceiling of the cab. "Tonight it's going to suck. There's always someone there to be pissed at you if you come home plastered and smelling like booze."

Emily chuckled a bit.

JJ relaxed into her topic. "And after work it really sucks, because you don't get to go home and just collapse. You have to still be on, and sometimes he's just so perky and I just want to tell him to fuck off back to Louisiana."

Then she frowned. "But if he's not there, then I worry about where he is. And sometimes… sometimes it works. If work has been awful and I just need something to put it out of my mind, and he's there, and he's made dinner, and he's happy to see me, and there's nothing else in the world that I need."

Emily closed her eyes. "I was afraid you'd say something like that."

* * *

Emily stared at her phone, unable to dial, unable to put it away. It was late, nearly four, and she was still muddy-headed from the alcohol, and slightly nauseated. She felt like an addict. She shouldn't call. She shouldn't need it so much. She shouldn't feel so afraid of the one person she felt safe with.

And it wasn't as if it was Emma who scared her. It was the darkness around her, the people who had looked at her with ugly things in their eyes and their minds. And it was her strength and her pride and her anger and how they didn't seem irrational, not for someone like her, not for someone with so much inside.

Emily had lived in enough war zones, had walked through ghettoes, had counseled the abused and wounded and afraid often enough to know that people changed in certain ways based on the world they grew up in. It was basic profiling. She could see it in herself, in her colleagues, in her neighbors and the people she passed on the street.

There was a way of walking, a carriage, a response to unexpected stimuli that read to her as bright as a neon sign. Emily knew trauma, she knew people who had suffered immense, incomprehensible losses by the gratuitous violence of an unkind universe, and Emma should have been one of them. A teacher, caught up in a genocidal catastrophe, should be broken, should be unable to comprehend the loss. She would seem hunted, startled by a sharp echo, and stunned to immobility by the sight of children playing.

But from the moment the woman of diamond had turned to flesh, Emily had read a different signpost on the shattered shards of her soul. Emma wasn't broken by tragedy, just gutted, hollowed out, and never, ever surprised.

Emily didn't want to put words to the possibilities of what that meant.

But the part that was the most terrifying was how she felt that whatever world had made Emma into who she was, was not so far away, and perhaps she had stepped into it without even knowing of its existence.

And it wasn't fair, because it sometimes it meant nothing. But the times it meant nothing were the moments Emma made her feel like she was all that mattered in the world, and that feeling was always a lie.

Her phone rang.

"You can't call me anymore."

"What?" Emily heard the plastic of the phone creak under her grip. She had considered giving this up, but it _couldn't_ be taken away from her.

"You can't. Too many people know about this, about us, and if they know I'm still talking to you, that we're still in contact, you are in danger. So I am ending this now, before they hurt you."

The words were hard to comprehend, her head still twisting into odd balloon-animal shapes. But something deep inside matched what she had been feeling before. "So this is it?"

"Yes," Emma said, quietly, too quietly, but too resignedly to give any false hope. "It's gone on for long enough."

"It has." Emily was quiet for a moment. "Thank you."

It was entirely the wrong thing to say at that moment, but she couldn't find any other words. And perhaps that was what she meant. Thank you for saving my life. Thank you for being someone I could talk to and feel comfortable with. And thank you for ending this before I was too invested to step back from the edge.

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

Tuesday 9:15 AM

"You look terrible," said Hotch flatly as he passed her on the way to his office. Emily had come in early, unable to sleep, unable to waste time in her empty apartment, but the only file on her desk was Adrienne's and that just made it worse.

She ignored him, as she traced the details, put together the numbers, went over the credit reports and receipts that were location, motive, method, and tried not to wonder why she was so desperately seeking evidence against a criminal who was already dead.

JJ, right behind him, froze and stared at her. "I feel like crap, but I'm hung-over. You look ten times worse than I feel."

Emily didn't look at her. "I'm fine."

JJ let it go and went into her office. There was always more work waiting for her there.

About an hour later an IM box popped up on her computer screen and beeped at her.

GuruOfPink: u know what's wrong with EmEm?

GuruOfPink: ?

GuruOfPink: ?

GuruOfPink: ???????

SoccerPrincess: no

GuruOfPink: Weeeeelllll????

SoccerPrincess: no

GuruOfPink: Why not?

SoccerPrincess: You know why not.

GuruOfPink: I thought we fixed that last night.

SoccerPrincess: no

JJ gave in and went in search of Emily. She wasn't at her desk. JJ finally found her leaning over the sink in the women's bathroom, looking suspiciously close to vomiting.

"How many tequila shooters did you _do_ last night?"

Emily gave her a ghastly look.

JJ stepped in and put a hand on her back. "Are you alright?" She sounded more sympathetic this time, but Emily jerked away from her. She stepped away, and then covered her head with her arms.

"I think we broke up."

JJ froze her inappropriate reaction at its birth. "Did you…?"

Emily laughed weakly. "No." She leaned back against the cold tile wall and rocked her head up to stare at the ceiling. "You'd think that I might, say, reconsider calling her all the time after I found out about… you know, her sister? But I couldn't give it up. She could. Trying to protect me, as usual. I thought it would be okay, that it was a good idea, but, I'm just…"

She scrubbed at her face, and mildly panicked, JJ reached out again, but pulled back, her hand hovering over her shoulder, but not daring to touch it. "Why did she…?"

Emily shrugged, keeping her face covered. "I was too drunk to remember to ask."

* * *

Emma hadn't felt the brush of fur around her face for too long. It was exactly what she needed. It felt like control, which was exactly what she was lacking at the moment.

She found her phone in her hand her thumb hovering over send, her mind getting ready to beg, trying to work out which words would _fix_ this, (would fix everything). (Sometimes she wondered how hard it would be to just make her forget. Why did she have to know all those things? Why was she even bothering with letting Emily do all those idiotic things that she called her career? She could just fix it, fix _her_. It would be so easy.)

(And then she would deserve the fur she wore.)

Sebastian had actually gotten good reservations at a nice restaurant, which was mildly unnerving to say the least (even if it was for lunch), and he was dressed in a new suit, and looked about ten times less grim than he had just last weekend.

"What has happened to you? Did you… deal with your son?"

"I did indeed," Sebastian smiled broadly. "And in a way he never expected."

Emma was curious enough to probe, but Sebastian would be able to tell, and it was impolite, so she merely tipped her head and raised her eyebrows, waiting for him to be too eager to manage to keep it a secret anymore.

"I'm the new Lord Imperial."

* * *

Without meaning to, Emily had brought Adrienne's file home. Flipping through it for the tenth or eleventh time, she noticed a reference to the Hellfire club and frowned. There was something familiar about that name, but she couldn't remember whether Emma had thrown it out off handedly, or if it had been Ro, trying to convince her to end things with Emma, back when there really hadn't been anything to end.

That was what made it difficult this time. Back then she hadn't expected it to last, and even their conversations fading out had been expected. Emma's paranoia wasn't a permanent element of her character, and even her interest in Emily's wellbeing was only inclined to fade since she hadn't had to be informed that Emily had ended up in the hospital again for some time.

But that weekend, aside from the serial killer, had seemed almost like a date. She had met her students (which was unnerving). They had sniped at each other and fought like people who knew each other far too well (which was a lie). And she had come back from a hellish interrogation by the NYPD and hadn't had to be alone. (She had still been angry though, but Emma hadn't cared. She had slid into Emily's stiff back, parting her from behind, biting down on her shoulder, and fucking her mercilessly until she had to press her face into the pillow to keep from crying out at her release.) It had felt real and possible, those few days, but it wasn't, of course. It was an almost.

Almosts were warning signs. As long as it wasn't real, wasn't normal, wasn't scripted, it could exist. Emma could want her because she needed her. But once it was real, she was gone. It shouldn't have been a surprise. No one wanted Emily for something real.

She opened her laptop and searched for the Hellfire Club, to avoid wallowing in self-pity. Oddly enough, there was a website. It was a dark brown screen with a black input box in the center. What were you supposed to put in? Some sort of code?

There were letters there, black on dark brown. "Surname."

She considered. "Frost," she typed in. It was research. And she hit enter.

The page opened onto another. Frost was written in white, six times, down the center of the screen. Each one had a small image of a chess piece next to it, one king, one pawn, one bishop, two queens and a rook. The pawn, the bishop, and one of the queens were tipped onto their side, as if captured. When she clicked on one another box appeared, but this one said password, and she didn't have any success probing it.

She went back to the first page and on a whim, typed in Prentiss. The page that opened up had a list probably over a hundred names long. They were written in red. Nearly all of them had chess pieces in a position of surrender. Most were pawns, but there were a few other ranks mixed in. The pawn at the very bottom was still standing. Emily clicked on it.

The box that appeared was a button labeled "register." She hit it. The page that opened was a questionnaire, but not a normal registration form. It was more of an ancestry page than anything else. It asked about her grandparents, and great-grandparents, and generations farther back, their places of birth, their maiden names. Emily wasn't entirely certain whether she could remember all of this, but it was interesting. She was at the limit of her recollection, but only halfway through the form, when it all disappeared and a pop up filled the screen of her computer.

"Identity verified. Emily Elizabeth Prentiss, Special Agent. Scion of Edward Prentiss and Elizabeth Jane Prentiss née Jackson." It had her address, phone number, and place of employment. She hadn't filled in any of that. She choked, looking for a cancel button. There wasn't one. The only button left was 'set password.'

She set it hurriedly, trying to get out of the maze of windows. Find a club center near you! Set up an appointment! Select a special companion! Meet the Lord Imperial!

Finally she just quit her browser.

* * *

"You did _what?_"

"I made a website! Really, old Gordy was stuck in the past. He did not embrace modernity. And all of those new genealogy archives don't have anything on what the Hellfire library has. It's astonishing!"

Emma pressed a finger against her temple and thought that this must have been how the BNP leaders must have felt when the person who leaked their role lists confessed his act as being intended to 'strike terror in the hearts of the liberal British populace at their amounting numbers.' While _yes_, she understood the rationale, _no_, it still was a _terrible_ idea.

"Why are you so eager to have me at this party of yours?"

Sebastian smiled again, but this one she recognized. It was the one she didn't trust. (She felt much more on solid ground with it than with his boyish enthusiasm.)

"You do want to keep your position in the inner circle, don't you?"

"_No one_ is the White Queen besides me."

"And I'm just _dying _for you to meet the new White King."

* * *

Jean was in the hall when she got back, and gave an odd look at her coat. That was discomfiting, but it wasn't as if Emma would give this up if she were called on it. There were few enough places left where she still had power, and she wasn't about to give up this one. There was no way to eradicate the Hellfire Club, and she knew, far too well, that if it wasn't kept under surveillance, it had a tendency to grow poisonous shoots in any direction it pleased.

The Hellfire Club wasn't a moral compass. It wasn't built for evil. It was power, pure and simple, but like the pointer on a Ouija board could be directed the way the one with the strongest will wished. Emma just had to make sure that everyone still remembered that the strongest will belonged to _her_.

* * *

Tuesday 9:45 PM

Sometimes Ro just showed up to see how she was doing. She usually checked to make sure Emma was at least two thousand miles away, because when they ran into each other it was nasty. But if the coast was clear Ororo would take Emily out to dinner and they would always have a nice time.

But this time Emily opened the door with red eyes and Ororo nearly spun on her heel and marched off to kill Emma.

Emily lunged and grabbed her before she got out the door. "Where are you going?"

"To kill whomever it was who made you cry."

Emily laughed weakly. "You can't."

Ororo gave her a suspicious look, suggesting that she knew that Emily was just saying that to try and stop her.

"I wasn't crying about Emma." She grimaced slightly. "I haven't cried about her yet, and I'm not going to start. I have plenty to cry about that has nothing to do with her."

Ro sighed. "I believe it. Are you going to invite me in?"

-

"I brought you some tea. Should I make us some?"

Emily allowed it, and Ororo took her time in the kitchen, allowing Emily a chance to wash her face and regain her composure.

Seated, Emily breathed in the steam rising off her cup. "What is this?"

"I found it while I was in Nigeria. It's not technically tea, since it's made by steeping grains and grinding them up with spices. It's called Kunun Gyada."

Emily tasted hers and leaned back, enjoying it. Ororo watched her for a long moment.

"Am I allowed to ask about what made you cry if it wasn't our mutual… friend?"

"I'll give you the long version, since I love a captive audience." Emily seemed easy enough, but it was a blatant front. Ororo didn't respond and waited for her to talk her way out of her defenses. She always ended up confessing to her, even if she never confessed to anyone else. Perhaps it had something to do with their childhood together. Ororo thought that Emily kept many secrets from those she only had met as an adult.

She stood up instead of speaking and went to her stereo, pressing play without putting in a disc and lowering the volume until it only softly filled the background. Ororo tipped her head inquiringly.

Emily smiled. "Siouxsie and the Banshees," she filled in. "You could say that listening to this was what made me cry." She sat and picked up her drink, and looked down into it. "When we left Italy, my mother was transferred to the Ukraine. But it was part of Soviet Russia, and there weren't really any good international schools, so she left me in London at a boarding school. I met a boy there." She gave a broad grin as if expecting Ro to interpret that statement in an interesting way. Ororo, however, knew Emily, and merely looked at her with slight disapproval. "He was… older, and very pretty, and most definitely a rule breaker."

"And you immediately fell in love with him," Ororo filled in dryly.

Emily laughed. "It amounted to that in the end. I loved him very much. Probably because he was completely gay and extremely non-threatening. And because, what he did for me… it probably saved my life."

Ororo frowned. "What did he do?"

"He was my best friend." Emily paused and thought for a moment. "His name was Michael," she finally said. "His family was from the north, Yorkshire, out in the countryside, and he had had a hard time adjusting to London. I had a hard time adjusting to… everything, a hard time finding my bearings after what had happened in Italy. And he gave me someone who would listen, someone who made sure I went out and did things and stopped being afraid of having a good time. We went out to clubs in the South End whenever there were Goth bands playing. And I mean _whenever_. We must have gone to every single concert. We snuck out so many times, and were caught, and had so many demerits." She grinned, laughing to herself. "He's the one who let me believe that it really was all right if I wasn't attracted to boys, and that it didn't mean I had to be interested in girls either. And when I was finally ready to admit that I was actually interested in girls, he made me go out and embarrass myself by trying to talk to them." Emily winced. "I think it was good for me in the long run."

"He invited me home with him for break, and I didn't want to go to the Ukraine, so I went to Yorkshire instead. And his parents had _sheep_." She seemed mildly elated by this, and Ororo tried not to be shocked. "And they loved me… not the sheep, his parents. (The sheep were generally uninterested in my presence.) I mean, they knew he was gay, and they were generally supportive of it, and I think they sussed me out pretty quick. But his parents always bothered him about grandchildren. That made me uncomfortable at first, but I got used to it, and then they started in on me. At about the third break I spent there, they had pretty much adopted me. I wrote them more often than I wrote my own mother. And someone made the joke that Michael and I could get married and have children and still pursue our… outside interests." Emily smiled with a pensive melancholic sweetness.

Ororo snorted. "You didn't think that was going to _work_?"

"We were going to do it."

Ororo gaped at her earnestness.

Emily ducked her head. "Michael thought it was probably his only chance to have kids of his own, and I… I just wanted to be part of a family."

"I was going to stay in the UK for university, and then after college we'd work out where we were going to go and what we were going to do there, and get married. I was planning on going to Leeds University and living with Michael's family while I studied there, or maybe peace studies in Bradford. But my mother flipped out and made me go to Yale. We started out with drastic international phone bills that drove my mother nuts. Not that she couldn't afford it, she just thought I wasn't studying or making new friends. But suddenly, two years in, he stopped calling me, and wouldn't take my calls."

Emily looked down, an expression of strain crossing her face. "It was an awful year, but I eventually had to just get used to it that we weren't friends anymore. I graduated and my mother finagled me a job somewhere. And then he called me again, to tell me he was dying." She took in a rough breath.

Ororo sat up in surprise. But really, why should she have been surprised.

"He was a mutant, nothing big. He could touch something and change its color." Emily laughed weakly. "You don't want to know what he did to my hair, but it was gorgeous." She swallowed. "And in one of his nightclubs, looking for a hookup, he caught the legacy virus."

Ororo sighed. They had tried so hard to stop that, and failed so many people. And then her friend had sacrificed himself for the cure. He had known that they had already lost too many people to this disease, his own sister among them.

"That was why he had stopped calling me. When he found out he contracted it, he didn't know how to tell me. He didn't know how to tell anyone. But when he knew he was actually dying, he called me. I flew to be with him, I was a human, so it didn't matter that I had to go into quarantine. I quit my job, just dropped everything. I hoped every day that he would recover; that they would find a cure, and every day all I heard was 'these people deserve to die.' I was losing my best friend and no one cared."

Her voice broke and Ororo reached out and took her hand.

"I miss him. I miss him so much. God, it's been eight, nearly nine years. But sometimes it feels like he was the only one who ever really loved me. And he was the one I belonged with, because we weren't everything to each other. We were just enough. But I'm not enough for anyone else."

Ororo didn't respond to this, although she felt that she knew why Emily had been thinking about him today, and just pulled her into her embrace.

* * *

Emma stretched out on her bed, her arms above her head. The moonlight coming in her window was dim and soft, and she doubted she would sleep easily. Her fingertips itched but her phone was off and buried in her bag. She wanted to think about something distracting, her plans, Sebastian's plans, god, even her irritating students, but thinking about that sort of thing just made her feel sick and tired.

She rolled onto her side and wondered if this was what Jean had meant about her feeling twitchy. If one night with Emily had fixed it (a night and a long lazy morning to be exact) then it was clear she wasn't having enough sex. At least if the next party wasn't too political she could probably fix that as well. It wasn't going to help her sleep tonight though.

There was something different about sleeping with Emily. It was always too hot, but for some reason she never rolled away. And waking up in the morning, having rolled over on her phone, always left her feeling a little lost. At least it wasn't the fear that it had been, but it wasn't enough. Talking to her was fine, but it wasn't touching her.

She couldn't feel the warmth and solidity of Emily's body pressed against her. She couldn't press her lips to her neck and taste her skin. It was the way Emily squeezed her eyes shut, let her lips part and pulled in a quick breath when Emma slid her fingers inside of her that she couldn't forget, couldn't get out of her head. And how her shields dropped and how Emma could feel the rough column of fear that ran through her, but was drowned out by trust.

That was what she felt so rarely. That was what she didn't want to let go. Even the first time, when there was no reason for it, and when the fear was so much brighter and more jagged, she had arched _into_ her, not away. And Emma had been trying to hurt her, trying to make her realize that she wouldn't like the price of the offering she made. But Emily had lifted her hips and thrust against her, asking for more, not afraid of her. She had been afraid of the act itself, but not of her. Emma hadn't wanted to let this stupid human make her feel better. She didn't deserve to feel better. But how could you twist simple trust into something duplicitous?

Emma moved her fingers quicker, kicking the covers off, keeping her eyes closed to remember the way she had looked, straddling her hips, sweat dripping from her hairline even in the cool outdoor African night. And the way she had smiled, sort of guilty, a little intense, and entirely certain that she was going to take what she wanted, and then _had_.

Emma came with a short gasp and let her hand slow. She rolled over, tucking her sticky fingers under her cheek. She thought that she could likely sleep now. She didn't doubt her decision; she couldn't. Not when she could so clearly remember the way it felt to be trusted, even when she didn't deserve it. She could feel herself losing it, with Emily pushed against the door, giving her that _look_. Every moment it was farther and farther away, and it was better this way, to cut it off, pull out the roots, and throw it in the chipper. It was better than seeing her turn away.

* * *

"Emily, what's this?"

Ororo had gone into the kitchen for a refill of the Kunun. She picked up a card from the pile of mail on the table. "It's from the Hellfire Club."

"Really?" Emily came in and took it from her. The paper was soft and it was addressed by hand. The ink had the scratchy surface texture that suggested a fountain pen.

"Why are you getting mail from the Hellfire Club? Emma didn't…" Ororo looked stern and angry. She seemed taller and Emily was reminded of her friend's career.

"No. I was just… doing some research, and I got on their mailing list somehow."

Ororo pursed her lips. "You do not just 'get on the Hellfire Club's mailing list.' I do not believe they even _have_ a mailing list."

"Did you know they have a website?"

Ororo closed her eyes. "It has been a long time since I have associated with them. But they are _dangerous_, Emily."

Emily found a butter knife and slit open the envelope. She took out the card, also handwritten, but in gold ink. "It looks like they're having a party."

"_Emily_. Promise me you won't go."

Emily laughed. "I wasn't planning on it. This whole thing is absurd." She gave Ororo a sly grin. "Did you know my mother had a seat? I am apparently a scion."

Ororo covered her face. "This isn't a laughing matter. Your girlfriend may have converted to the bright side, but she has plenty of old associates who are still agents of chaos." In her tone it was clear that she would trust Emma's conversion as far as she could throw it (which, as it was intangible, was not very far at all).

"She's not my girlfriend," Emily said, more stiffly than she had intended. She read the card again. The party was on Friday, in DC, which was unnerving.

"Right now, that is less than important." Ororo clasped her shoulder and Emily looked up, startled. She rarely initiated physical contact. The grip prickled like static electricity. "You need to understand what you're getting into."

Emily jerked out of her grip. "I _do_ understand. I'm not an idiot. Emma told me about them before. Either way, this has nothing to do with her or with you. This is my job. I was looking into a file. There might be a serial killer associated with the group."

Ororo shook her head, suspicious and disapproving. "There isn't just _one_. I used to be the White King, I know."

Emily gave her an odd look. "White… King?"

Ororo gave her another narrow-eyed look that was clearly the 'I maintain my disapproval of your romantic alliances,' look. "Some people don't share well."

* * *

Emma woke up sweating from a dream that was half fantasy, half nightmare. Fur at her neck, Emily pressed to her hip and nuzzling against her. She knew it was Emily, but she couldn't see her. She could feel the blindfold, feel the leather straps of the harness digging into her. It should hurt, but it was the cool metal of the inhibitor collar that made her shudder. She was trapped in her own mind, truly blinded, truly trapped.

Emily was kissing her, a little lazily, but blatantly and forcefully, not letting her kiss back, taking what she wanted from her mouth. Then there were other fingers and other hands touching her, some laughter, and her stomach tightened. She knew the laugh, the one that was almost a growl, her fingers clenched together, unable to find something to hold onto. She felt younger; skinnier and angrier, and it was Lourdes kissing her now, not Emily.

And she knew what happened next. She remembered how it felt, how it made her feel fifteen again: weak and powerless, and dirty. She remembered not being able to get up the next day, too sore to move, and knowing that she had been an idiot to believe that there was any power in submission, any power in anything but control.

She heard Sebastian whispering in her ear, and she saw herself, smiling and drinking, and tracing lines over the human furniture, so happy because it _wasn't_ her this time. She had done it, she had taken it, and there was something beautiful about the fear and shame in the minds of these others. Maybe there was something beautiful in it when it had been her. It made children grow up.

Emma has always known that if you tell yourself a lie often enough, you can make yourself believe it, but it doesn't make it true. And she can see the lie, see the greed in everyone's minds, see her own self-hatred turn into selfishness, and the way she could read someone's mind and still see them as nothing more than a tool, than a weapon to be honed and balanced.

She remembered the girl, her trust, her slack mouth and wide eyes, and how she had so desperately wanted to please her. Why did they trust her? Why did anyone trust her when it was so obvious that she could not bring herself to care for anyone else, not unless she needed them? But what was the difference between needing a weapon and needing…

And it was always going to be Emily, her trust and her pain and the way she deserved something that wasn't selfish, someone who wouldn't just break her heart by forgetting that it mattered. And why couldn't she just hate her? Burn her, shoot her, kill her any way she wanted to, but don't forgive her.

She had felt trust turn to shock, horror and betrayal before. She had deserved it, and she was watching herself press Emily up against the door, choking her, screaming at her to hate her, to hurt her, to do _anything_, just not forgive her, never forgive her for this.

She was awake, and she felt the clammy sheets twisted between her fingers, the fear and sickness snarled in her chest. She scrabbled for her phone and pressed the number in before she could think. It rang twice before it was picked up, and Emma curled up helplessly in her disheveled blankets.

"Emma?"

She said nothing, even held her breath. There was a long silence on the other end of the line and then a sigh.

"This was your choice," came the quiet whisper. "I don't… I don't need you waking me up like this. I'm not going to martyr myself for you. I did everything I could to help you when I knew you needed it, but I'm _tired_. If this is all there is… this is _shit, _Emma! This is-"

Emma's thumb hit firmly down on End Call.

Five hundred miles away Emily heard the beep and threw her phone at the wall.

"This is _shit_."

* * *

Thursday 3:30 PM

Emily yawned all the way through the briefing, and covered her eyes from the painful light as they put together the profile. When it was over she evaded Hotch's disapproval, and found her way into Garcia's office.

"Are you all right, honey?" Garcia gestured at her monitors. "Seems like you weren't that into it today."

"I didn't get a lot of sleep. A friend came by and we stayed up late. Then I got a phone call when I had just dropped off, which made me too angry to go back to sleep. I watched infomercials for three hours, and then had a nightmare about my mom attacking me with a blender."

Garcia blinked. "That sounds… Freudian?"

Emily laughed. "Maybe. But I've never seen my mother in the same room as a blender, and I doubt I ever…" She trailed off and looked stricken. She swallowed hard. "I won't."

Penelope knew better than to press. "Was there a reason you came in here?"

"Yeah," relieved for the out, Emily rummaged through her papers. "I got this invitation," she pulled out the letter from the Hellfire Club, "do you think you can find out who sent it?"

Garcia frowned, and examined the card. She glanced over at Emily suspiciously, and suddenly Emily noticed the screens flickering, images moving so quickly over them that they couldn't register to her eyes.

"Sebastian Shaw."

Emily blinked. She remembered a frustrated, self-absorbed angry man. She remembered being asked if she were interested in her _rights_.

"You do know that the house where it's being held used to be a bordello, right?"

"A bordello? _When_?"

"Until 1898."

Emily couldn't help letting the laugh bubble up from behind her hand.

"It hasn't changed ownership since it was built."

"Are you trying to imply something?"

"This group has a connection to a lot of shady businesses. You aren't planning on _going_, are you?"

"There's no reason for me to go."

"Do you think Emma's going to be there?" Garcia looked curious but hesitant. "Do you think she dumped you because she was going to get involved with them again and didn't want you to get caught in the crossfire?"

Emily stiffened. She hated being protected. Everyone thought she needed looking after, that she couldn't handle things. She could handle so much more than they thought, and the things that were actually too hard to handle were shoved towards her like they were cake.

"Why would that make a difference?" she forced out. "I don't want to see her again. I don't need to deal with that shit."

Garcia's eyes widened. "Did something happen?"

"She called." Emily sighed. "She called and didn't speak, and then hung up on me while I was yelling at her."

"Ooookay?"

"It just pissed me off. I don't need her to fuck me around anymore. She was…" Emily pressed her hand to her forehead and sank into an extra chair. She looked at Garcia who was making her pathetic sympathetic expression. "Do you ever regret things… with your parents, I mean, do you regret things you said to them or hid from them, mistakes you never got the chance to fix?"

The sudden offensive was a bit of a shock, but Penelope only flinched for a moment. "Of course. And every day there's something new I wish I could have told them, shared with them."

Emily looked at the wall, but wasn't seeing it. "I think…. I think I was a terrible daughter. I used my father's death as an excuse to abandon my mother. And it wasn't as if she were there for me, but I couldn't respect that she felt like I did, because she had left him. I had been loyal. And I assumed everything she did was an attempt to control me. Even when she told me that she wanted me to respect myself enough to find someone I wouldn't be ashamed of introducing her to. I thought that meant she wanted me to see people that she approved of. So I did the opposite. I actively sought out women who were too vulgar or too wild, people she would hate. Not that I ever let her encounter one if I could help it."

She hung her head, and Garcia sat stiffly, trying to focus on her pain, rather than wonder if she had stopped looking to accomplish something because she didn't have anyone to tell about it.

"I miss her. It feels so stupid because I had such a long time where I wouldn't talk to her, would do everything I could to stay away, and now I just wish I hadn't been an idiot, and I still had a chance to make up for my bratty attitude and try to relate to her as an adult."

"I don't think she saw you as not an adult."

Emily smiled weakly. "Still, it would have been nice to let her know that I understood her when she said that I should respect myself enough to find someone I could introduce her to. She wasn't accusing me of anything. She actually meant what she said."

Garcia cocked her head and looked at her curiously. "You would have introduced Emma to her?"

"I didn't…" Emily laughed aloud and flushed embarrassedly. "I didn't mean that, really. Emma… She reminds me of my mother. The hanging up on me when I start to swear is not a new thing. She orders me around, makes me go to terrible parties."

"And gives you lots of hot sex?"

"It's not _that_ Freudian." Emily shook her head. "My mother would have either loved her or hated her, but she wouldn't have _disapproved_ of her."

She had known it for a long time, but at the funeral it had really come through to her. Emma wouldn't let her sulk in the corner. She wouldn't let her think she was more out of place than everyone else. She had teased her and pushed her, and with the hollow absence of her mother so visible, Emily had needed something to fill it.

It would be nice if that were all, if she could recover from two losses with a single bout of grief, but it didn't work like that, not after months of lazy conversations, after desperate confessions, and fear, and absurd, nonsensical need.

But if this was about protecting her, goddamn the bitch.

* * *

Emma! Phone for you! Jean called up to her, and Emma blinked up from the papers she wasn't quite managing to grade, confused. No one ever called her through the mansion line. Everyone important used her cell phone, and everyone unimportant was routed to her secretary.

Who is it?

She wants to speak to _you_!

Emma found the extension buried in a drawer and plugged it in. "Hello?"

"Ms. Frost?"

"Yes."

"This is Andrea, head nurse at the Restwood Institute for the Psychologically Afflicted."

Emma's grip tightened on the phone. "Yes?"

"This is a courtesy announcement, informing you that one of the patients here recently succeeded in his attempt to commit suicide. We are very apologetic at our failure, and desire to let you know that we are doing everything possible to prevent this horrific occurrence from repeating himself."

"Is Christian all right?" Emma hated officiousness in all its forms, and this woman was rubbing her in every wrong direction possible. But she knew better than to start yelling before the important information had been provided.

There was almost a smile of relief in the woman's chirp of a voice as she responded. "Oh yes, patient Christian Frost seems undisturbed. The incident occurred in a different wing. Right now he's having arts."

Emma groaned internally. She still wanted to squash the nurse like a bug, but couldn't work up the anger at her cheerful report. Just the way they spoke of him, as if he were an unruly four year old, made her feel sick and sad inside.

"Thank you for informing me. If the situation does not improve, I will look into the possibility of having him moved, as I am certain many others are already planning to do."

There was a small gulp on the other end of the phone, which was satisfying, and Emma hung up and sighed.

Is everything all right? Jean inquired, pryingly.

Just another incidence of someone sensibly getting out of this world before it's been shit forever.

There wasn't a response, which was a relief, and Emma turned to diamond to cut everyone off. She moved to her bed and lay down, though it bent deeply under her, and stared at the ceiling.

Sometimes it was easier to pretend that her brother was dead than consider his real existence. That institution was the best one in the United States. (There was one better in Switzerland, but she wasn't comfortable with having him so far away.) But it still wasn't a place with horseback riding and silverware. It still wasn't what he deserved.

But he hadn't deserved this life at all. Just go and never look back, that was all she had wanted him to do. She didn't care if he abandoned her. It was her own obligation to save herself. She had been so proud of him when he walked away. She had wanted to be him, knew that she would turn her back just like he did some day. She wished so much that he could have truly cut his bonds. But she had done everything she could and she still felt them dragging her down. She was still a Frost, and would always be one.

Even if they escaped their father, and the house he had made, where nothing was good enough but perfection, where there was nothing more important than success, they carried his eyes in their own heads. They hurt themselves because they could not come up to his imaginary standards. They hurt others in their drive to fulfill them.

Christian hadn't hated their father. He had disliked him, and disagreed with him, but he hadn't hated him. Adrienne had been angry with him, had felt betrayed. Cordelia had taught herself not to care. But Emma had hated him.

She hated him even now because she saw herself in him. Teaching, joining the X-men, all of these had been ways to distance herself from him. But in the end, she could not suffer failure. She knew how important it was to be perfect, inside and out.

She wasn't perfect right now. But she was better than Christian, who would never be perfect again.

Jean was at her door. "Hey."

"What do you want?"

"Are you still leaving for the weekend tomorrow?"

"Do I have to clear everything with you?"

Jean smiled. "You're going to DC, right?"

"Yes."

"Are you going to-"

"No." Emma cut her off. "I have business. And don't you dare tell me what I ought to do with my time or my relationships."

Jean just smiled again, terrifying as always. "Tell Emily 'hi' for me. I would like to meet her again at some point, whatever messes you're making of the involvement."

She slipped out and Emma collapsed back on the bed with a groan.

The phone call about Christian had made her wonder whether she ought to go at all. Perhaps her 'no one is the white queen but me' attitude was too much of result of her father's influence. It was her disinclination to give anything up, even when it would be better to close the door on that part of her life and move on. (This thought sounded uncomfortably familiar to her. She tried not to wonder why.) The club was her own psychosis, a past she couldn't escape. But letting it go, leaving it to its own devices without knowing what was going on was far too frightening to contemplate. Even the good Professor hadn't been able to do that.

* * *

"Find anything? Damning or saving?"

JJ was leaning over Emily's shoulder, peering down at the file.

"Emma said once that her family had produced a madman and three sociopaths. I think her sister fits the definition of sociopath unnervingly well."

"She was one of four?"

Emily nodded absently.

"Nice that she included herself as a sociopath then." JJ chuckled. Emily ignored her.

"I wish I knew what the White Queen was, what it _meant_. I should have asked Ororo when I had a chance."

"Isn't it a chess piece?" JJ cocked her head. "White starts the game, and the Queen is always the most powerful piece on the board."

"Power," Emily mumbled. "It's almost strange how old fashioned that idea is. How long has it been since we had a case where there was a good traditional power grab as a motive?"

"Are you counting serial rapists?"

"Oh," Emily frowned. "Not that long then, I guess."

I know what you mean." JJ sat down on the edge of her desk. "We spend so much time dealing with psychopaths and irrational behavior that we forget that some people kill because they've decided that it is the most convenient method to attain their goals."

"It's easy to call that a psychosis, like sociopathy or just misanthropy to an extreme, but it's not that extreme, is it? We just assume that it's normal for everyone to think that killing a person is so heinous that no one in his right mind could consider it. But not everyone's mind is the same."

"And when you're dealing with mutants," JJ said, baldly, as if waiting to be called on it, "killing a human might not even be comparable to killing a person. I knew boys in high school who killed cats for fun. When we're not even the same species, what sort of empathy should we have?"

Emily couldn't respond to that. The twisted power plays of the party were still fresh in her mind. Roger Crooke hadn't been a psychopath. He had been angry and jealous and threatened, so he had used the deaths of those he considered worthless to try to get rid of the one he hated. But he was just a human, and even to him, there were so many people, other humans, he considered worthless.

"Why are you still working on this anyway?"

"Because this has been an incredibly boring week." Emily glared at her. "Why haven't you given us anything to do?"

"You've had a consult every day! Two yesterday! It's not my fault if you're all geniuses and finish them in less than four hours." She scowled. "And Hotch has been in meetings with Strauss all week, so we're lucky we haven't had any big cases."

Emily glanced over at her, curious. "Meetings, what for?"

JJ looked shifty.

"They're not going to split the team, are they? I heard… about ideas for a team specifically focused on mutant serial crime."

"Hotch will never do that," JJ said firmly, shaking her head. "I did hear some discussion about bringing people in for training, within the team. He wouldn't break us up, not now that we're all getting along so well again!" She laughed, but looked serious again quickly. "I didn't hear anything about a special mutant squad. But… with your solo collar this past weekend, you're kind of setting yourself up to lead it if there was one."

Emily glared. "It wasn't a solo collar. And my psych reports are still terrible. If they want me to repeat that, they had better get me a tackling gymnast, a genius, and a telepath." She frowned, considering. "It was actually a bit like having Morgan and Reid with me, and…" Her eyes drifted.

"Don't you dare compare me with that… _woman_."

"It's all right. I couldn't do it in my head either." Emily glanced at her file again and transcribed list of names. The top one was Sebastian Shaw. "I have other reasons to still be looking at this too."

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

Friday 7:45 PM

"Fuck!"

Emily peeked out of her closet and scowled at her mirror. "What do you _wear_ to the Hellfire Club?" She stared at herself and drooped. Her stomach felt poisoned, as if it were nothing but a heavy bag of sand inside her. She knew she shouldn't be doing this, but she had to _know._

From the very beginning there had been something unknowable about Emma, something, that from the inside, felt buried deep, that felt lost and alone. It was idiotic to think that she had some _right_ to know, or even some way to find out. But it always seemed to rise to the surface around her, when Emily was hurt, or sad, or absolutely furious.

Maybe it made her too lenient, give in too easily. If only because it felt so much like something that she knew so well. And she had given in too easily. She had let Emma dictate everything, when they were together, when they weren't. She had dictated her own forgiveness. And Emily always had to beg.

Fucking clothing. She had a pair of boots, a skirt, a tight, darted top, and put her hair up, then spread dark red lipstick across her mouth. She was ready to go.

* * *

"Miss Prentiss! I'm so honored that you've come!"

The servant who took her coat seemed to fade away into the dark oak paneling of the foyer, and a man she recognized by his wolfish smile and incredibly out-of-date close-clipped muttonchops hurried up to greet her. He seemed to have washed his hair in the interim between weekends, which was a great improvement.

"Ah, Hi. Mr… Shaw, correct?"

"Indeed," he smiled. "The Lord Imperial, at your service."

Emily tipped her head to the side. "Is that something like Dictator-for-life?"

"Perhaps, but I know better than Caesar, I think, to watch my back, even from those I consider friends."

"Really." Emily's glance was steady. "Do you have many friends here?"

"Oh, my dear Miss Prentiss, everyone here is my friend. Including you, I hope."

"Of course. Since it does not forestall me from sticking the knife in, why not?"

He laughed. "It is your first time to the Hellfire Club. Let me show you the way into the party."

He held out his arm. She shook her head tightly, but stepped next to him, to allow him to lead. He took the rejection with a wry amusement and led the way out into a dark hall, lit only by a high candle-bearing chandelier. It led in three directions. To the right was a long curving hall. To the left was an open door that showed a dim stairwell, and ahead was a grand staircase. Sebastian led her towards that. Emily could hear voices from above and she breathed slightly more easily.

"The best club is in New York," he said, conversationally. "But we have branches in Boston, Los Angeles, Austin, every major city in the US, and most European capitals as well."

"Only most?"

"I'm afraid both Lithuania and Andorra are not on our list."

"The Vatican?"

"Why, of course."

"Any presence in Asia?"

"Singapore, Tokyo, Dubai… the branch in Hong Kong and the one in Bombay are run by our British brethren, so we don't have any responsibility for them."

"There's a British version?"

"Some would say we are an offshoot of theirs, but as the title of Lord Imperial has now moved to this side of the Atlantic, it seems that the colonials have settled into an even footing."

Emily doubted this, particularly by the way he kept mentioning his position as Lord Imperial every forty seconds. It was probably a recent development.

"But of course," he continued. "You would be interested in the British branch." He gave her a sidelong glance that made Emily wish for her coat. "I am very pleased you wore red. A few of your father's relatives held positions quite high in the red suit. Your mother's line, of course, was pure white."

"Suits?" Emily furrowed her brow. "I thought it was more like chess than cards."

Sebastian cocked his head. "You're curious then? About… a position? Few humans rise up so far in our rankings these days. After the _reimagining_." He looked at her slyly then, as if expecting her to react, and she felt a slithery touch against her shields, and tightened them. "Of course, are you indeed a sapiens? You do have some… _ability_ it seems."

"Purely taught."

"Of course. You have had _exposure._" He rolled his eyes. "And some people have no ability to _stop_ teaching, whether or not it is safe to give information to certain types of students."

Emily had wondered when the conversation would get around to that subject. She didn't particularly want to talk about her. But she considered the insult. "All she told me," she said, certain that she was showing off, and not really caring, "was that Telepathy was a match of will against will, and all I needed to do was strengthen my will, nothing more."

"Really." He took the riposte in the vein it was meant.

At the top of the stairs he opened the door with a wide sweeping gesture. "The Hellfire Club, Miss Prentiss, at your pleasure."

It was almost a normal party, if there were normal parties where the norm was for men to wear waistcoats and cravats, and for women to wear nothing but fur and silk. And it was almost a normal room, save for the scent of cigars and well-oiled leather, and the harnesses and straps that blended in with the decorations on the walls. There were paintings with ornate frames done in gold leaf, hunting trophies, and weaponry. Emily couldn't help her eyes from settling on the assorted whips mixed in with the other implements. It felt unnervingly familiar, like a forgotten unsub's basement, but on such a huge scale, that it was nearly unbelievable. What the _fuck_ had she gotten herself into?

Sebastian offered her a drink and leaned casually against the bar. "You're one of us now," he said with a leer. "Are you interested in hearing about your rights?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Emily wanted to move away as quickly as possible. But his hand clamped down on her arm and he held her in a grip much stronger than his form suggested.

"Emma's just the tip of the iceberg," he said. "Once you have Hellfire, you can never go back."

"Look," Emily hissed. She was tired of playing along. This had been a mistake, and she needed to get out of here before Emma caught her and ripped her up for wandering in so far over her head. "You speak with me straight, or you shut up. I don't care about your little secret societies, or about playing a part in your vile threesome fantasies."

Shaw chuckled. "Oh, that wasn't a fantasy. It's actually… incredibly amusing that you would assume it so. The very _first_ time, my dear departed wife and I decided that it would be just too unfair if we didn't… share her."

Emily stared at him, eyes widening. He stepped closer, murmuring into her ear.

"Emma was always my favorite, because she never thought anything was too disgusting or too perverted to try. And she was so… young. That was what made it delicious. How she pretended to be older, more mature, more in control, by never showing discomfort. You just pushed her towards the edge and she'd jump off of her own accord. She did learn to like some of what we showed her, rather than just gritting her teeth and taking it. I bet she's shown you some things you never thought you'd like."

"Don't… don't _speak_ to me like that." She sounded like her mother, but she didn't have any other defenses here

He shook his head with a small smile. "Emma's wonderful. But you haven't even seen half of what the Hellfire Club has to offer. Sometimes you need to satiate your desires in a place where no one will blame you for it. No one will call in a marker. No one is waiting for you to slip."

"I don't need that."

"Your mother wasn't such a prude. She took advantage of what we have to offer."

"Don't you _dare_ talk about her!"

"Why? Do you want her on a pedestal? Do you want to believe her pure of the same desires you have? The ones you hadn't imagined until your lover showed you they were possible?"

"Shut _up_!" Emily turned to try and find the door. "I'm leaving."

"No." Sebastian stepped closer to her, pressing his hand into her chest and backing her against the wall. "You do not understand. This is the Hellfire Club, where we do not blame you for your desires. If you can accept your place here, you must accept that your mother belonged here as much as you, and that you have no reason to despise us for allowing her to pursue what she wanted."

Emily shook her head, mute. Sebastian stepped away, laughing to himself.

"It would be truly hypocritical," he said, "to be repulsed by your mother's memory for a few innocuous visits, when your lover has slept with every man in this room."

"I told you to shut up," Emily hissed at him, shoving him aside. "Now get out of my way."

"But there are so many people who want to _meet_ you."

Emily abandoned him in her wake. But she had already left it too late. The main doors opened and Emma swept into the room.

* * *

Emma was running late, but it was always better to arrive late than early, at least officially. Unofficially, it was always better to have a look around before the party started. There was a lot you could learn from the set up.

Checking into her hotel felt odd, and she hated that it felt odd to her to get a hotel in DC. It had been _months_ since she had stayed there, months since the last time she had wandered around that apartment as if it were her own. She was used to hotels, penthouses and formality. She couldn't have gotten unaccustomed to them so quickly.

There was a message waiting for her at the desk. That was strange, as far as she knew she had told no acquaintance where she planned to stay. And her secretary wasn't likely to spill. She had made certain of that.

"Who is it from?" she asked the concierge.

"Mr. Frost."

She stared at him blankly.

"Shall I read it?"

"_No_." _Of course not, you idiot_, was the subtext. "Give it to me."

She read it in the elevator.

_My Dear Emma,_

_I find myself, for once, to be in the same city as you, at the same time. I would be gratified if we could meet some time today, preferably before eight, as I have another engagement then, and you could satisfy me as to the falsity of certain rumors that have been circulating._

_Your Father_

Suddenly Emma went from feeling mildly ill to very ill. She knew exactly what rumors he was talking about, and knew exactly that her last ditch smear campaign had been completely useless. It was already eight fifteen. She didn't have a chance to meet him, and warn him off of whatever he intended to do.

The party at the Hellfire Club had started at eight, although the real action usually didn't get going until midnight, the business deals were finished before then. It didn't matter so much that she was late. There was nothing she _had_ to get done. This meeting wasn't business, although she couldn't' truly say it was for pleasure either.

She considered the potential guests while showering, mulling on their reputations, their businesses, what they might know, _who_ they might know. But she couldn't bring herself to be interested in any of them. She ignored one thing it might mean. Perhaps she was just growing up. There were more important things than pleasure. She had to get the business done first. Put in the face time, play her role perfectly. The reputation of her new employer meant she had to walk the line even more carefully. She had to regain trust without making any promises, or any statements that were more than suggestive.

She had to stay for the real festivities, she thought sickly. If she didn't, they would know it was a role, and they would assume it meant more than it did. Saying she wasn't interested would be an insult. It would mean that _their_ interest was to be despised. But the truth, that she was too tired to keep playing the role for so long, projecting a strength that Jean had stolen from her, was both an admittance of betrayal and of a dangerous vulnerability.

She blow-dried her hair and dressed quickly, lacing up her boots and pulling her heavy cape around herself. Her car was waiting outside. She stood in front of the mirror for one last moment, pulling herself together, becoming who she needed to be for these people, to survive in this place.

Of course, the moment she stepped in the door, all her careful, vaunted preparation disappeared as if she had never begun it at all.

* * *

Friday 9:05 PM

What was Emily _doing _here? God! The whole point of this charade was to keep her out of this. Clearly she had the self-preservation instincts of a sacrificial _goat_. And she was just standing there, gaping, as if every woman in this room didn't have even _less _clothing on.

Emma felt her face go hot, and she was certain it was anger burning in her chest. How dare she risk herself like this? Emma was going to _mutilate_ her.

But she couldn't do it here; that was obvious. She fixed her with a look. Outside.

The command hit Emily like a splash of cold water, and the compulsion forced her a step towards the door. She shook it off, pushing it out of her head and glared. She was not about to bend over and obey that woman's every wish. And honestly, what had she been thinking? That it would be easier to do this in person rather than over the phone? At least on the phone she had some independence, even if she didn't use it. At least she wasn't completely vulnerable there.

She could feel the barely restrained vicious fury in the word that had been bolted into her head. There was going to be a scene, that was obvious, and she didn't need an audience for when she let go. (Because she was holding on so tightly, had been ever since that phone call, and she didn't know what she would do if she let go of all that anger and betrayal she was keeping bound up so tightly.)

Emily continued on her path towards the door, which brought her within six inches of Emma, but she didn't turn her head, didn't show any signs of recognition or acknowledgement, and stepped out onto the landing. She leaned against the wall and wished to god that she hadn't come.

Forty seconds later she opened her eyes to find Emma glaring at her.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

That was rich. "Oh, you didn't want me to come? Everyone else seems to think you were trying to lure me here."

Emma stepped forward, using her height to intimidate, to press her against the wall, and Emily caught her breath, unable to be so close to her and not _look_. There was so much to see. And what she saw made it so obvious that all the things she had been hoping were lies were not. It didn't make a difference to the ache inside of her, the way she couldn't tear her eyes away. She just wished that she could blame the compulsion to press herself against the warm skin and bury her nose in the fur on someone else.

"You shouldn't be here." Emma said, sparing a quick glance back over her shoulder, and again, it was nothing but an insult.

"Why? Because I can't take care of myself?" Emily glared at her. "Because I'm too weak for you, too human? I'm just the wrong species, aren't I? I'm not good enough for you."

That got a reaction. "Shut the fuck up about things you don't understand." But she still wasn't looking at her.

"Then I guess I can't talk at all," Emily snapped. "I don't understand _anything_. Are you going to explain it to me? Explain why they wanted me here? Explain why you even _bothered_ with me when you've been with every man here?"

"What?" Emma turned back to her, staring incredulously, and then pushing through her shields. They were weak with hysteria, but it was humiliating to feel them knocked down so easily. Emily struck out with the memory, with Sebastian's words, with the glance around afterwards, all the men, well dressed and cruel, and the women, no different, and did everything she could to keep back the rest.

Are you going to tell me? Or are you going to lie? I don't know which I would prefer.

You want to know? It would have been a laugh if it hadn't been a thought. You really want to know how many of these men I've slept with? A touch like ice closed around her mind, and she was pressing into her, closing her down, and choking off something, if not her breath perhaps the very beating of her heart. I don't want to know yours. I don't because it doesn't matter. If you touch someone else, if you _want_ someone else, I'll know, and I'll _kill_ you.

Emily struggled against her grip, fought her as hard as she could. Emma was ice inside and steel out, and all her vaunted strength, her confidence, was lost in a frenzy of anger and fear. You can't…

What would you say if I told you I had slept with them all, not even just the men, _all_ of them? Would you call me a whore? Turn away from me? Others have on less than that.

Stop _defending _yourself. Stop _testing_ me! Just tell me the _truth_! And she pushed back, pushed as hard as she could.

I _haven't_, you idiot. Why-

And for some impossible reason, by some impossible means, Emily pushed through.

There was a sharp flicker of a repressed thought and she caught the edge of it before it fled.

_That I know of,_ was what Emma had thought, what she had tried to keep back. There was a flash of memory: heat, scratchy fabric against her eyes, metal tight around her throat, the rough floor digging into her knees.

Don't! Emma dragged her out and slammed up defenses around that area. I don't want you there! I don't want you to see that.

Emma… Emily couldn't move, or think. She had nothing except the sharp panic threading through her veins.

It's all fucking Jean's fault. I can't… I can't keep control, even of my own memories.

What _was _it?

Nothing. Emma pulled away from her, but didn't block her out, didn't chase her away. It was nothing. Just an idiotic piece of the Hellfire Club's hazing ritual. They lock an inhibitor collar on your neck, blindfold you, bind your hands, and you're sent out as the party entertainment. All they want is to humiliate you, and you can either participate in your own humiliation, or resist, and have it forced upon you.

_Emma…_ This time the name itself ached. Emily knew too well that Emma would not easily bend her back. She didn't want to imagine what they would do to someone who didn't want to play.

Don't _pity_ me. I chose that. I chose to suffer what I needed to suffer, so I could get what they had to give. And I had it. I had the power. I regained my pride, my wealth, destroyed my enemies and made new ones everywhere I turned. I took _advantage_ of it.

And too much of this made sense, too many of her desperate practical decisions which were _always_ so wrong. Just like you take advantage of everything.

Emma stiffened. I never claimed to be anything but selfish. I never will. Maybe I thought that you deserved better, and that I should let you go. But you know that you make me vulnerable, and yet you still throw yourself into a pit of snakes. Emily couldn't deny it. Please go. Do you know enough now to be afraid?

I knew enough to be afraid the moment I walked in the door. Emily shook her head, closing up her wounded shields, closing her out, even as she felt an involuntary tug against her mind, trying to keep her nearby. "I _am_ trying to be less stupid. I'm sorry. I'll get my coat and go." And she looked up, wishing to be brave. "Would you…" she trailed off.

Emma stared at her, knowing, too well, what she was asking, and wanting, too much, to agree. "I can't."

Emily turned away quickly. "Fine. That's… fine." She hurried toward the stairs. "Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

She disappeared down the steps, and Emma slumped against the wall, covering her face with her hands. "Oh fucking god," she muttered to the universe. "This shouldn't be so hard."

She couldn't go back in yet. She had no composure left, not now, not after Emily had ripped another secret away from her, and not blamed her, not hated her for it. There was only so much forgiveness you could take before you wanted to fucking _shoot_ yourself.

* * *

Emily had no idea how to find the cloakroom or the servant who had taken her coat. She tried a few doors, but they were all locked. And some of them were numbered and labeled, which was worse. She was considering abandoning her coat as collateral damage, when one finally opened. It was a large room, with a raised area, like a stage, and there were a few people standing in it, talking amongst themselves. A fire was roaring in the giant fireplace, implements glowing red-hot beside it.

Emily was about to retreat when she heard someone cough behind her and turned. It was a man she recognized from the party the week before, greasy grey hair and a bald crown.

"Lorne," she said, as she recalled the name.

"Miss Prentiss."

Lorne was standing with a tall handsome man, with piercing light eyes and close clipped pale grey hair. But the falcate lines on his face were cruel ones.

"May I present to you, my master. Winston Frost, the White King."

* * *

No one familiar was there. Sebastian wasn't there either. She stretched out. He was downstairs, with some others who felt familiar, and… Emma froze. Then she hurried as fast as her boots could take her towards the door.

_I should have just said yes and taken her _home_._

* * *

"So, you're my daughter's new… toy." Winston Frost was remarkably well preserved for a man in his mid sixties. His ice blue eyes were at once familiar and repulsively strange.

"Emily," Emily replied flatly. She didn't care one inch for his tone. She didn't care about anything he had to say. Her rejection was complete and it was time to just go _home_.

"It's a disgrace. At least her brother was only a worthless human. But that _she_ should stoop to this, my _most_ admirable child." He shook his head. "I'm truly sorry for you. She's only doing it to make me angry. True mutants don't have that taint. Homosexuality is just another sign of the deterioration of the sapiens genome."

It burned a little because he was so clearly behind on the news of the complete disaster that was their relationship. But Emily laughed. "Is _that_ what mutant supremacy sounds like? How dull. You just recycle other people's prejudices. Can't think of anyone new to hate?"

"Be careful child." His eyes were narrow and cold. "You're playing in water over your head. It would be only too easy to ruin you."

Somehow she couldn't look away from him. She just stared, wondering what it would be like to grow up with _this _as her parent. Even if everything Sebastian had implied about her mother had been true, it was vastly clear that she had been so lucky in comparison.

"Do what you must." Emily shrugged. "There's little recourse when someone hates you for what you are." She tried to move past him, towards the door.

Winston's hand shot out and grabbed her shoulder, spinning her around again. He glared, and she wondered if he would hit her. She didn't care. She'd taken a beating from younger, stronger men than he. "Do you think you're special? Do you think she'd choose you for something real? She wants one thing from you only, and I hope you figure out what it is before you let yourself get into deep."

"Are you trying to protect me from her?" Emily almost laughed. "I know what she wants. I needed something too, and I took it. I'm _satisfied_." And he would _never_ understand what that truly meant.

Winston sneered and laughed at her. "God, you're just as much of a whore as your mother was."

Emily froze. But he turned away and before she could manage to find the words that fit her furious retort, she felt a hand on her wrist and then a sharp prick. She jerked her arm away but a burning lethargy shot into her arm. The last things she saw before everything went black were Sebastian's smile and Winston's sneer.

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

Friday 10:17 PM

Emma stumbled down the stairs, running thought the halls. Christ, she had been such an idiot to let her go alone. The door was locked. She jerked the handle, jerked it again, and felt an odd click, as if she had forced it open with solely her will, and it swung open. She strode in as if she were Napoleon, and it was such a lie. But the room she walked into was a theatre, and it was used to such lies.

There was Sebastian, standing by the stage, and smiling, _far_ too happy. A few others she knew too well, the rest, a scant touch of her mind was enough to know that she didn't _want_ to know them.

"Emma! Finally. We were _waiting _for you."

And then she looked up, and nearly killed him where he stood.

Emily hung from the flies on the stage, naked, blindfolded and bound. The ropes were tied in kinbaku style, forming her body into an aesthetic shape, marking her back and hips into diamonds. Her breasts were outlined into prominence, her wrists entwined and locked behind her, her body twisted into a cocoon of red vinyl and pale skin.

"Take her down," Emma said, so softly, but the room was quiveringly quiet enough for everyone to hear her. "You have no right to play with her this way."

They had done something to her mind. She wasn't unconscious, but she wasn't afraid either, a little foggy, but responding warmly to Emma's scan. Drugs, probably.

"But _Emma_, it's her _turn_," Sebastian whined.

"You _dare_ to play with my pet?!" Emma strode up to him and shoved him, sending him reeling against the edge of the stage. He straightened up, eyes growing dark.

"You know better than that, Emma. You know better than to prime me." But he raised his hand, and Emma heard the squeaks of the pulleys as someone worked the flies to lower Emily to the stage. "And if I remember correctly," Sebastian continued. "You gave up your claim to her." He smiled cruelly. "And since she wishes to take her seat, she must be initiated."

"I gave up my claim so you would leave her _alone_. If you're bringing her into this, I'm taking her back!"

"I can't let you do that, Emma."

It was a voice she never wanted to hear, not here, not anywhere. It sent sharp prickles across her shoulders, and she straightened, fighting the sick response in her gut. She looked up. Her father stood on the stage, behind Emily, who had settled limply onto her knees. His hand rested on her head, his fingers moving in spider-like waves against her cheek, one dragging down her lower lip as it moved over her face.

"She's a human," he continued. "I hate to do this, claiming such a useless thrall, but if you are going to make yourself vulnerable, I will make the sacrifice."

For a moment she was frozen. It could already be too late. Once he took her, enslaved her, there was no way to bring her back. She didn't move, just stared directly into her father's too familiar eyes.

"Get your _filthy_ hands off of her. She is _mine_!"

And she reached out. Lorne's mind was an empty shell, from being her father's thrall for so long, easily manipulable. And he had grabbed her father by his collar, dragging him back, a knife pressed so tightly against his throat that a slight trickle of red ran down his neck and stained his white shirt.

He didn't flinch. He stood there with a blade to his throat, staring disapprovingly at her, as if she were twelve, and he were evaluating just another of her failures. And this was just another failure, a real failure, not mediocre grades or a lack of an ability to make friends with the right people. This was her failing to protect the people she cared for. It was the only challenge that really mattered, and the only one she could never, ever surmount.

"You would threaten me for her?"

"I would kill you for her," she said, emotionlessly. "I would kill you for stepping on an ant, father. I have no love for you."

"I am only trying to protect you."

"When have you _ever_ protected me?" Emma shook her head, not quite willing to laugh at that absurdity. "I am more powerful than you, because I rejected your help. I am better than you, because I left you behind, and you may have destroyed half of the people I have cared for in this world, but I _will_ not watch you rape her."

"Oh, has little Emma gotten squeamish in her old age?" said Sebastian with a laugh. "You were going to bring your pretty student here. You wanted to see her innocence ripped away, you wanted to _help_."

That had been true enough. She had been drunk on the power that she could gain from making someone love her. That had been strange enough. She had wanted to see how far she could take it, how far she could push that girl, how much of her life she could destroy, and make her turn, inexorably, towards her. Perhaps it was a relief that she hadn't actually done it, that the girl had turned on her, and fled, betrayed and angry into the arms of the X-Men. But it wasn't as if she deserved any forgiveness because she hadn't been _able_ to commit all the vile acts she had wanted to.

"You think I've changed?" Emma spoke quietly. He didn't understand at all, but Sebastian had never been able to see beyond his own desires. He couldn't understand that her father would always choose power over sex. He would prefer the rush of destroying a man's mind over _any_ other.

She stepped up onto the stage, cupping her hand around Emily's head. Emily purred happily, scenting her, she supposed, and leaned into her stomach. Emma stroked her hair as she nuzzled against the hem of her corset.

"You think I don't want to see her violated?" Emma shook her head at the sad fools. "I love it. I love seeing her gasp, and bleed, and cry. I love seeing the fear in her eyes when I take her somewhere she isn't certain she wants to go." She looked at them, sharply. "But that pleasure is mine alone. I don't play nice, and I don't _share_."

"You've never been so possessive with us, Emma," whined Sebastian.

Emma glanced to him and gave a vague shrug. "I like to break other people's toys, but you had better not try to touch mine."

Her father just smiled, his eyes lizard-flat.

Sebastian peered at her, sly and smug. "Did it ever occur to you that this was a test Emma, one that you _failed?_"

She met Sebastian's eyes, her own just as hard and cruel. "You don't have the right to test me."

"I do when you're making a fool of yourself over a _human_." Sebastian shook his head. "Her pedigree is decent enough, but until she's one of us, _truly_ one of us, you are doing nothing but bringing shame onto our reputation."

"Has it ever crossed your mind that I might not _care_?"

"Emma," Sebastian pleaded. "You shouldn't do this to yourself. Stop pretending that this isn't what you want. I _know_ you. I've known you for far longer than most. I can understand why you joined those prissy do-gooders. I can even understand why you left us for that ghastly doomed island. And she's… pretty enough, though not up to your usual standards, Emma, but once she's _Hellfire_, no one is going to be afraid of her, or think you're weak. Everyone will know she's your pet, she can be a rook if you want, and all you have to do is share, _just this once_."

Emma turned to her father. "Will this satisfy you too? Will putting her through this make her somehow worthy? Will you _leave her alone_?"

He smiled, and she could read exactly what he wasn't saying in his eyes. All he wanted was to make her bend, remind her that he still could control her, more than ten years after she had left home, walked out of his sphere of influence to do nothing but free herself from him, from his wishes and his demands. Did he think she was going to back down _now_? Her hand tightened on the back of Emily's head, and she made a soft mewl of protest.

"_Fuck you all_."

She saw the flare of anger in her father's eyes.

"She needs to be initiated," snapped Sebastian. "I am the new Lord Imperial, and she came here voluntarily." He glanced nervously over at her father. "And I _promised_, for the money…"

Sebastian had never been afraid of making a deal with the devil, not even this one, it seemed.

"_I_ will handle it." Emma said, as she lifted Emily to her feet, and wrapped her in her cloak, ignoring the drugged woman's interest in her breasts. "You've already made it easy enough, haven't you? Will she remember anything tomorrow?"

"It's a new formula." Sebastian smiled, clearly pleased with himself. "It shouldn't interfere with her memory. What's the point of humiliating someone if they forget about it?"

Emma smiled tightly. "So true." She caught Emily up, carrying her as if she were a featherweight, and turned towards the doors at the back. She knew the signs for the private rooms, and there at least, she could make certain the drugs wore off in peace.

"I will not let you shame me like this!" her father roared. She could hear him lunge for her back. She stood still, eyes half closed, and the sounds stopped. He froze.

Emma breathed in, containing her anger, staying in control, and she glanced over her shoulder, fixing him with a harsh glare. His eyes were wide and stunned, and he was clearly not looking anything in the room. "I am not a child," she said softly. "Because you are my blood I cannot destroy you with my mind, but if you ever come near her again, I will murder you, just like I did with Adrienne. You should know by now, I _do not care_ about blood on my hands."

And she carried Emily down the stage steps and toward the door.

She had given him her memories of her sister's death, given him her anger and Adrienne's fear, and then how it had felt to feel her die, her mind, tortured and anguished, suffocating, and then gone. It had taken a few moments longer for her heart to stop beating. She could not enter his mind, she could not violate it, but she could still show him the truth.

* * *

She carried Emily into one of the rooms meant for private, or at least comfortable, assignations, and locked the door. It was well appointed, as was expected of Sebastian's obsession with the baroque. She wondered how much of the money he had borrowed from her father had been spent on remodeling this club. It had been a modern ugly hole of a nightclub the last time she had visited.

She untangled the knots that kept Emily's wrists attached to her ankles, and let her feet drop to the floor. She stood under her own power, though still leaning into Emma's chest.

Emma untied the blindfold and slipped it from her eyes.

"Hey."

Emily blinked a few times as her eyes adjusted to the dim light cast by the branching candles and the low fire in the brazier. "Hey."

Emma started untying the knots. Emily stood still, looking calm and soft from the drugs.

"I met your father tonight."

"I know," Emma snorted.

"I thought…" Emily seemed to consider this, her head tipped to the side like a child. "I thought you broke up with me. Why am I meeting your family?"

Emma shook her head, and ran her hands over the indentations in her skin, trying to smooth them out. "Because they're clearly insane. And they wanted to meet you."

"Your sister's dead," Emily added, almost conversationally.

"Yes, she is."

"You shot her in the head." It wasn't an accusation, more of a plea. The conflict in her words was blatant and almost desperate. What response could she give?

"Yes, I did," Emma said softly, closing her eyes.

Emily blinked a few times, as if she were starting to cry. "I don't know what to do with you." She took a harsh breath. "I don't understand who you are."

Emma slipped her arms around her and stroked her hair. Emily leaned into her without hesitation. "I'm a bad person," she said softly. "I do bad things. I have bad thoughts… about you." And there were so many of them, all different kinds, too many dark fantasies where she held her down, wouldn't let her go, wouldn't let her pull away, her hand on her throat until she lay still.

Emily blinked up at her, rubbing the tears from her eyes with her fist. "I have bad thoughts about you too."

Emma smiled and brushed her lips against Emily's cheek. "You _do_ tell me what I like to hear."

Emily looked at her for a long moment, and Emma wondered if she the drugs made her innocent enough to miss the innuendo, and say what those thoughts really were. It would be too easy to slide inside of her and find out. Were they about fixing her? Or about putting her away and binding her up so she couldn't hurt anyone, couldn't hurt _herself_, anymore? But she didn't want to know. Emily finally smiled softly and arched in her arms, lifting onto her toes and pressing their bodies together. Her eyes shut and she made a soft little noise like acquiescence.

It was probably wrong to fuck your ex when she was high on aphrodisiacs and had just admitted that she was afraid you were an unrepentant murderer. But Emma put the emphasis on _unrepentant_, and she slid her hands down Emily's back and over her thighs, lifting her, and laying her gently down on the bed. Emma knelt between her legs, hovering over her, almost close enough to kiss, but stayed still and just watched her.

"Will you be here when I wake up?" Emily asked wonderingly.

"Do you want me to be?"

Emily gave her a cutely confused look. "Yes," she said, as if such a silly question did not need to be asked.

"Then I will."

Emily buried her fingers in the fur of her collar and pulled her down. She kissed her, wetly and easily, open mouthed, with a slight clash of teeth. Her fingers found the laces of the corset and burrowed beneath them. "Good," she whispered. "I have too many dirty thoughts for just one night."

Emma let herself kiss the soft flesh of her neck and pushed away the knowledge that Emily probably wouldn't be so pleased to see her tomorrow.

It felt wrong to like this Emily, so sweet and pliant, who burrowed into her body, just gave a little moan when she stretched her too far, who touched, never afraid of rejection, never even conceiving of it.

This Emily was one who took her promises at face value, and didn't expect her to lie. But everything they were was a lie. Emily had known that before, and their coming together had always been a little desperate, a little broken because of it. Emma could tell her stories and promise forever, but Emily could never believe it, and half their touches were begging to be able to forget that this was nothing, that it would always be nothing.

But this Emily didn't see right through her and for a little while at least Emma could allow herself to believe her own lies.

* * *

Saturday 5:26 AM

Emma was asleep, naked in bed, the sheets around her waist, her back smooth and cool in the dim room. Her hands were underneath her head and her shoulder blades rose up at an angle from her back.

Emily sat beside her, knees tucked up to her chest, watching her back rise and fall. She was shivering, running her fingers over the burns the ropes had left on her skin. She remembered too much: Emma's ferocity, the violence, her own vulnerability, and of course, her own easy submission. But she also knew the difference between what could have happened to her, and what _had_ happened.

Finally she stretched out her hand and ran the pads of her fingers along the hollow of Emma's spine.

Emma turned her head, blinking up at her, not as asleep as she had seemed. "You still want to touch me? After what I did to you?"

"You didn't let them hurt me."

"No," Emma turned her face away. "That right is reserved for me alone."

Emily was still too tangled up. She couldn't quite find words to say what she needed to say. Her fingers ran over the curve of Emma's ear and she pressed something that wasn't words towards her, wishing that that would work, and she wouldn't need to explain the bundle of trust and fear that made her need to know. "Why?"

Emma glanced at her. "Why do I have the right?"

Emily shook her head. She knew the answer to that one already. "Why don't they?"

Emma stared for a moment. "I used to think that everyone deserved to suffer that, because I had." It was almost a challenge.

Emily didn't break the eye contact.

"But you don't. I… I may have gained something from it, but not enough to make it worth it, not for you. They have nothing that you need."

"Tell me." It was a command, though Emily hadn't intended for it to be.

Emma turned away with a huff, half laughter half anger, understanding her, too easily and too unhappily. "You want to know all the secrets of my dirty bloodstained body?"

Emily slid down and curled into her. "Only if you want to tell me."

Emma stared up at the ceiling, cradled in the comforting warmth of Emily's body, and lost in memories that she wished she could lock back up and never feel their presence again.

She started slowly, meditatively. She was stating facts, not things that had happened to her, not things that she had done. "The reason why the Hellfire Club is such a popular place isn't because of the parties, or the business deals. It's because you can always have sex there without giving up your power. The employees… the captured enemies, the pleasure room. They're all made so that you can take exactly what you want. Your partner doesn't even have to remember it in the morning. And if you want someone tied up and aroused to the breaking point, all you have to do is ask. If you want someone to hurt, if you want someone to hurt you, if you'd rather a hologram do it, so no person can ever say they broke you, not even for the thirty seconds before their mind is wiped, all of these things are here. The real entry fee is your shame. I don't have any of that left."

Emily's fingers were twisted in her hair and she slowly adjusted their positions until Emma's head was resting on her chest.

"I didn't have much left before the initiations. I had been working in one of their strip clubs. It seems absurd now, that I would ever have _needed_ to do that, but my powers developed slowly enough that I needed the environment to make it easier for me to make them give me their money. Sebastian, a poor telepath himself, noticed my potential in… more than one way, and thought that I could be useful in his plans, and his marriage bed."

She felt Emily sigh under her. "You knew that already."

"He mentioned it."

"I'm not ashamed of that. I'm ashamed of being a foolish, manipulable child, but I'm not ashamed of what I have done. And in some unsettling way, Sebastian truly did love his wife, and was devastated when she was killed. He lost much of his connection to reality when that happened."

"You won't ever convince me to forgive him."

Emma snorted. "I'm not asking you _that_. But at least for him, sex was always just sex. For some of the others, it was a way of asserting control, and was inextricably linked with violence."

"Them as well?"

"I didn't really have a choice. I was a powerful woman: not powerful enough to control them, but not weak enough to make them feel safe. I had to make them feel safe in other ways."

"Why did you need to be part of that group so much?"

"Why?" Emma let out a soft breath. "Perhaps I thought they would give me the power to truly destroy my father, or at least show him that I could be better than he would ever be, without his help, do it all without his help."

_But they didn't_, she didn't say, _that was you_.

"I think I understand now, why you wish he were dead."

Emma smiled, but it faded. She pulled away, supporting herself, but not yet sitting up. "I hate looking like this in front of you. My shields are all gone."

Emily nodded. She knew that weakness, the fear of having someone inside, who opened the doors you always kept closed, who could steal all your secrets and know all your hurt.

"Why don't you blame me for any of this? I feel like a criminal when you look at me, possibly because I _am_. But you won't punish me for it. And you don't pull away from me, even when you know how much of a monster I've become. Sebastian said you'd remember everything. You know _everything."_

Emily watched her silently. If she knew everything, why did the facts still not fit her intuitions? But it was so clear that there were a hundred things Emma couldn't say because she felt that she didn't deserve forgiveness, didn't deserve understanding. Emily sighed. It was her turn to be honest.

"I might have been drugged and easy, but I did nothing more than what I always do around you." She wouldn't look her in the eye, couldn't. She spat out the rest of it, half ashamed of feeling it, and half ashamed of saying it at all. "I hate the way you make me feel out of control. I hate that I like the way it feels to give myself up to you. I hate that the fact that I can't trust you, shouldn't trust you, makes me want you more. Even your power, that I'm always at your mercy…" She glanced back, and Emma was watching her as if she knew everything she was going to say, as if none of it was a surprise, just a confirmation of something that had been said before. "It terrifies me, but I still can't pull away."

"Would it be absolutely absurd if I say it feels exactly the same from this direction?"

Emily laughed with relief and rolled over on her stomach to look her in the eyes. "Do I terrify you?"

"You have _no_ idea how much."

Emily almost leaned forward and kissed her right then, wanted to kiss the wry self-mocking grin right off her face. It turned into a warm genuine smile, and Emily just smiled back, even thought it made her feel like an idiot.

* * *

A noise came from without that sounded suspiciously like an explosion. Emily pushed herself up into a sitting position and looked over at the shaking wall. Emma grimaced and covered her eyes.

"Did you by any chance let anyone else know about this party?"

Emily looked hesitant. "A couple people."

"Any X-Men?"

Emily looked at her in horror, and then down at her nakedness. "It's Ro's team, isn't it?"

There was another noise that echoed like a crack of lightning. "Highly likely." Emma met her eyes in a sideways glance. "Sneak out the back?"

"You're on."

Emily's clothes had been seriously mislaid, so she wrapped herself in Emma's cloak. They peeked into the hallway, checking if the coast was clear, and sped towards the back exit. It was a fire escape down into a disgusting alley. Emma proffered an arm and a shoulder so that Emily could maintain some dignity getting down the ladder.

"I thought you'd be here, sneaking out the back like the rat you are," came a voice from nowhere. And Ororo stepped out from where she had been lying in wait behind the dumpsters.

Emma groaned. Then Ororo spotted Emily and gaped.

"You! What are you doing here? You told me that you weren't going to go!"

Emily scratched her head and smiled. "Plans change. You know how it is."

Ororo narrowed her eyes and glared at Emma. "This is your fault. You got her into this."

"Hey! I don't claim that it's not my fault, but she came on her own." She glared at Emily. "I would _never_ have told her to come here. It was lucky that I was here, to save her ass." She placed a possessive hold on the indicated location.

Emily rolled her eyes, but didn't disagree.

"How does saving her result in her wearing nothing but your cape?"

Emma snorted. "The hero deserves favors."

"_Emily_?" Ororo requested a second opinion.

Emily bit her lip. "I was already naked before she rescued me?"

Ororo just groaned. "Come on. I believe we have some extra clothing in the jet."

* * *

Emma was highly amused by the way Emily looked in the dark leather jumpsuit, and had to keep her hand cupped over her mouth to suppress her mirth as they walked the last block back to her apartment. Ororo had offered to take her back to the mansion, but she hadn't even missed her flight yet, and it was probably better to give this trip some semblance of normalcy.

"Cut it out," Emily glared at her, as she unlocked the door.

Emma laughed aloud and then twisted Emily's hair back from her face, holding it in various styles, and ignoring the eyes of death. "I never considered what you would look like as an X-Man," she said, laughter still in her voice. "It's quite fierce."

"Shut up." Emily jerked her inside and shut the door behind them. "And unzip me. I really, _really_ need a shower."

"Mmm," Emma pressed her nose into her hair as she found the completely inconvenient zipper and dragged it down slowly. "Sounds _perfect_."

* * *

Emily made coffee Sunday morning, while Emma was calling her PA to have her pack up her hotel room. It was so easy to slip into old habits while she was here, but it never hurt any less when she had to leave.

Emma came in, her phone at her ear, took a sip of coffee and flashed her a brilliant smile. Emily leaned weakly against the wall.

Emily drove her to the airport and parked in the small private lot, then walked with her out to the private airfield. Astonishingly, the PA had managed to get her stuff out of the hotel and it was being loaded onto the plane.

They stood with their coffee by the hangar, and Emily felt sick.

"I don't know if I can keep doing this."

Emma turned and gave her a sharp confused look. "What?" Her eyes widened as she realized what was happening. "What are you doing? Didn't I already break up with you like three days ago? Not that it stuck."

Emily looked down at the coffee in her hands. She had made a stupid decision and it had nearly cost her far more than she could pay. But she knew she couldn't let it keep going like this and trust herself not to make the same mistakes again.

"I can't make it go away," she said quietly. "There will always be a time when you were all I had, when all I knew was that you were angry and grieving, just like me. But that's not enough. I know what you can give me, and I care about you. But we're always going to be in different places, with different needs. It's probably best to let it go."

"Why are _you_ saying this now? You were the one who wouldn't let it go. You were the one who basically forced me to call you!"

"You needed to call me! You needed to have some way to make sure I was alive! Don't think I couldn't tell when I woke up with your fingers pressing against my pulse."

"Maybe I still need you! Maybe I'm not okay with letting you go!"

"You never claimed me! If you want me so much, claim me!"

"What the fuck do you think, 'you're mine,' means?"

"Tell me you love me! Tell me I make you feel something besides anger and fear and _lust_ and desperation!"

Emma stepped back and looked away. "What else is there?"

Emily felt herself starting to cry and hated herself for it. "This isn't healthy!"

"I don't…" Emma started, looking winded. "I don't want to let you go."

Emily hadn't expected the hurt to be so visible on Emma's face. "Why? Why do you need me so much? Wouldn't it be better for you if I was dead, if you didn't have to try and chase after me and protect me?"

"I wouldn't be chasing you if you didn't stalk me!"

"Maybe I wouldn't stalk you if you ever gave me a chance to tell you how much I _hate_ you. You make me feel like shit! You tell me how much I deserve, but you'll never give me that. When you're here it's so easy, but then you just throw me away when it's not convenient. Can't I… can't I ask _anything_ of you? It would be so easy to let myself need you, but I can't _trust_ you." She laughed. "And it has nothing to do with trusting you to not turn violent or evil, or any of that crap that everyone else is worried about. I can't trust you to give more than phone calls and occasional sex. And I need to _be_ someone in your life. If I'm not, if I can't be anyone to you, if we can't have anything real, then I need to let you go."

Emma just watched her, blindsided and so blatantly unhappy. It gave Emily an uncomfortable repulsive little thrill that she had the power to make her look like that. It was only fair, the selfish part of her mind thought, after she had been made to feel that same way so often. And she had said what she needed to say, without dropping to her knees and begging. She knew what the answer would be, and she would never beg.

"I can't give you that."

At the blank hopelessness in her tone, Emily stomped fiercely on the vindictive sprout. "I know."

Emma reached out, cupping the backs of her arms and sliding her hands down them to curl around her elbows and draw her closer. The guilt made her sick, but this was about power in the end. It was always about power.

"I think we're just seeing the same thing from different angles. There's no future here. It's not safe for us to be together. I do…" She looked away, mouth twisting. "…love you, even if all that means is that you make me crazy and paranoid. But I can't keep you. God knows I could never live with you. I need to let you go, if only to find out if I can."

Emily nodded and stared at her feet. "I owe you my life. More than that now, I think. You brought me back from the dead, and in some ways that means my life will always belong to you. If you… if you want to call in that marker, you can. But I can't stop living. You gave me a taste of what it would be like to be your girlfriend, and it was wonderful. I love being the center of your attention. But I'm not. I'm a distraction. I make things more difficult for you."

Emma swallowed hard. She had said these things to herself over and over again. Before she had never wanted to say, "None of those things are as important as you." The worst thing was that it felt true. Rationally it was garbage. But it felt true.

Emily moved in her loosened grip and pulled her in, kissing her roughly. Emma opened up and let her in, choking back a rough lurch in the back of her throat, her fingers digging deeply enough into her arms to leave leopard-print bruises.

"I don't know if I can ever change the way I feel about you. But I need to find out if I can."

"Just," Emma glowered at the tarmac. "Be careful. I'm always going to worry about you. You always say you have those profiling skills, use them sometimes."

"Right back at you," Emily couldn't laugh. "You risk yourself too often, and I don't know if you always understand what you're looking for."

"And if I'm looking for you?" Emma's fingers caressed her jaw and Emily lifted her head, letting her fingers brush against her cheek, over her mouth, gently, more gently than ever before.

"I'll take your calls. But speak. I don't know if my phone can take being thrown at the wall again."

Emma nodded. "If you need my help… you had _better_ call, or I will be very unhappy with you."

This time Emily was the first one to turn away. Emma stood in the shadows of the hangar, watching her leave.

Emily wondered if _her_ shoulders had ever burnt like this while walking away. It was easier to keep moving if she kept them straight and strong. It was a lie, but she didn't think she could survive letting her body tell the truth.

* * *

Monday Morning, 8 AM

Jean gave Emma a harsh look as she came into the kitchen where Emma had been sitting, drinking tea and grading, since 4 in the morning.

"I had a very interesting phone call last night."

Emma flashed her a harsh tight smile. "I'm sure it was interesting. You don't have to destroy me though. She dumped me this time. I am… not enough for her." She laughed, without any humor in it.

Jean cast her a confused sidelong glance. "I suppose I _don't_ have to destroy you then."

"No." Emma turned back to her papers. "It would be redundant."

* * *

Emily came into the office and settled quietly into the chair. George glanced up and gave a small smile.

"I have a question this time."

He blinked, surprised at her lack of prevarication. "Go ahead."

"Is it… sane to have someone who…" She leaned her head against her hand, tipping it forward and letting her loose hair fall in front of her face. "Who you think your life would be meaningless without?"

"Sane?" George sat back in his chair and seemed to be considering it. "I'm not sure I could say it is truly sane, since so many irrational things have been done for it, but it certainly is the most common form of insanity I've ever seen."

FIN


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